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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023.0502.TCRM.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL May 2, 2023 A Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 5:32 p.m. Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Gerry Friedel; Councilmember Sharron Grzybowski: Councilmember Brenda J. Kalivianakis; Councilmember Hannah Toth; Councilmember Allen Skillicorn Staff Present: Interim Town Manager Rachael Goodwin; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town Clerk Linda Mendenhall Audience: Approximately sixty-nine members of the public were present. TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 1 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Post -Production File Town of Fountain Hills Town Council Meeting Minutes May 2, 2023 Transcription Provided By: eScribers, LLC Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Page 1 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 2 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: And now we will call our regular order. Please stand, if you chose, for the pledge and remain standing for the invocation. ALL: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Tonight, we have Vicky Derksen, who is the president of our Fountain Hill's Dark Sky Association. Hi Vicky. DERKSEN: Mayor, and council members, and town staff, we are all gathered in this room for the purpose of doing the business of local government. The goal is to improve the quality of the community. A responsibility that has been given to you by the citizens of Fountain Hills. This governing body represents a diverse community, and we embrace many traditions and demographics, varying religions and nonreligious beliefs, a wide spectrum of political beliefs, various races and nationalities, young and old and everything in between, yet we all share this one big, beautiful community called Fountain Hills. And although we are all different, we are linked by our common humanity. We share the goal of making our community the best place that we can. So we unite here today with that deeply precious goal and common purpose. For that reason, it is incumbent upon this council to make the best decisions for our community. Wisdom, reason, and empathy arc your tools. They propel cooperation, control the tone of deliberations, and lead to decisions that are right, not just for today, but also for the months and years ahead. The end result is a better, more unified community for us and for those who come after us. This is how we improve the quality of life in Fountain Hills. May this meeting end with Fountain Hills one step ahead of where it started. MAYOR DICKEY: Roll call, please, again? We're all here. [LAUGHTER] MAYOR DICKEY: This time it will be easier. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Here. I m sorry. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon? Vice Mayor McMahon? Page 2 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 3 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MCMAHON: Here. MENDENHALL: Council Member Friedel? FRIEDEL: Present. MENDENHALL: Council Member Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Present. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Present. MENDENHALL: Council Member Toth? TOTH: Present. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicom? SKILLICORN: Here. MENDENHALL: Anyone wishing to address the council regarding items listed on the agenda or under calls to public should fill out a request or comment card located in the back of the council chambers and hand it to the town clerk prior to consideration of that agenda item. When your name is called, please approach the podium, speak into the microphone, and state your name for the public record. Please limit your comments to three minutes. It is the policy of the mayor and council to not comment on items brought forth under call to the public. However, staff can be directed to revert back to the council at a future date or to schedule items raised for a future council agenda. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. I guess she's okay. So we start as always with our reports from mayor councilmembers and the town manager. Town Manager, Rachel, do you have anything? GOODWIN: I do. I just have one update for our council. I know we've had a lot of public engagement recently via email, a lot of feedback about a lot of different things going on in our community. One of these items was about off leash dogs in our parks. I think a number of you have gotten feedback about that. So I did want to share that after receiving the concerns, we had a meeting with our park staff, our code enforcement, and the MCSO, and we've launched an awareness campaign in our parks for the next several weeks where were going to educate our pet owners about our leash laws and the responsibilities of pct ownership. And while we do have assistance from Maricopa County Animal Control, it's clear that we need to have a local Page 3 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 4 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES daily canvass at this point. So our staff have taken that on and with this joint effort, we will be recording data and specifically engaging with the residents who do have off leash animals. Our goal is obviously to increase awareness of our laws, as well as visibility and overall compliance. And I'd like to thank the staff that came together to do this. This is a unique venture where we have a number of different departments helping accomplish this and then we will be back to update Council with any outcomes or additional findings. That's everything I've got. TOTH: I just want to give a shout out because of a community project that was this Saturday by our Four Peaks Rotary Club and Kiwanis Clubs to paint 21 classrooms over at the, well, currently Fountain Hill's High School, soon to be Fountain Hill's Middle School campus. Those 21 classrooms were a lot for us to bite off to try and get done in one day and this community rallied around it, and we got enough volunteers to get it done in under two hours, which was absolutely incredible. I cried about it on the way home; I'm going to be honest. I just was swelling with pride for my community, so I wanted to share that pride. And thank you to all of you. I also want to shout out councilman Friedel and councilman Skillicom for coming as well as everyone else. I would list all of your names if 1 could, but I feel like you'd be mad at me for being here a while. But thank you for being here -- being there on Saturday. GRZYBOWSKI: I attended the Phoenix East Valley Economic Vitality Committee meeting. There was one league of Arizona legislative update call. Last wcck I also went to the Arizona Association for Economic Development's Spring Conference, and that's generally for economic development staffers, but it was interesting to go as a councilperson to hear the presentations made specifically for staff. This moming I virtually attended the Affordable Housing meeting. That's Affordable with a capital A. One of the interesting programs that they discussed was affordable housing for seniors specifically over the age of 62. It was really very interesting and the project that this particular company worked on, when we picture that kind of thing in our head, we have a tendency to picture your traditional mobile home park, but these were actually what's I'm calling little houses. 1 live in a little house myself, so it was like the size that I live in Page 4 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 5 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES now and it was just -- it was an amazing project. It was kind of a cool call to be on. Thank you. FRIEDEL. Thanks, Mayor. I did attend the domestic violence regional meeting where their focus this meeting was on teen dating violence. And well have more to report on that at our next meeting. And I did attend the community painting party. 1 think there were over 150 people that showed up for that. So again, kudos to the people that got that organized and I think we saved the district, up to that point it was $90,000, but they figured that day was another $40,000 in expenses. So that's money that can be used for other projects around the schools. This Saturday, there's going to be Paws on the Avenue in front of Classy Jazzy. So if you're around between I I and 2, make sure you get down there. And then Mayor, I'd like to give a shout out to Elbert Kursadak (ph.). This is a resident in town that somebody dumped a big pile of garbage behind the Wells Fargo Bank in town here, and this gentleman on his own accord went out there and cleaned up that mess and got it all cleaned up for the town. So just a shout out to him. Thanks for doing that. We really appreciated that. Thank you. MCMAHON: Good evening, everybody. I attended our Pedestrian Traffic and Safety Committee meeting and was updated on the sidewalks and our traffic and it's moving along. Also, I attended the mayor's prayer breakfast and that was in Chandler and it was on youth and mental health awareness, which was a direct correlation to our Cares Forum that we had last week, which was on teen mental health and the consequences of social media, overusing it. And I have to say thank you both, and the committee, because that was very very successful. There was a lot of teens in attendance and adults. And a lot of information that was given out by the sponsors and tables in the back of the room. So that was really great. 1 also attended the Valley Metro board meeting and work session, an update on Proposition 400 and the funding for our streets and infrastructure across our county. Also, we had the council's joint chamber meeting, and I thought that went really really well. It was nice to sit up here, talk to everybody, and emphasize the transparency, the Page 5 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 6 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES collaboration we have and partnerships we've had for many many businesses' events in town. So that was great. I also attended the United Way breakfast on homelessness and in partnership with the stakeholders to learn more about what they are doing to address the increase in homelessness in Phoenix. And today, 1 also attended a MAC (ph.) webinar on homelessness. And it was really interesting to learn how Houston has solved a lot of their homelessness by providing housing. And they have decreased their homelessness by more than half because they collaborate with businesses and other stakeholders in the community to work together, to have communication and trust, to build housing and to find housing for homeless people, which has solved a lot of the problems. It was really a interesting conversation. So thank you. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thanks everybody for coming out tonight and for all of you on Cox channel I I and YouTube. Really appreciate it. Again, this is a great turnout and it's very inspiring. A week ago Wednesday, I went to the Pedestrian Traffic Safety Committee with the Mayor and Vice Mayor. Safety is job I in Fountain Hills. The Mayor, Vice Mayor, myself, along with the Town Engineer, and other selected staff went through a lot of the complaints -- I wouldn't say complaints -- the feedback that we've gotten from the town on traffic safety, sidewalks, pedestrian safety, and we literally go through those one by one to address them to make sure that all of your concerns are being addressed. Some people don't know that, but these things don't go off of ether. They get taken care of by our town. Again, like the Vice Mayor said, reduce the speed of motor vehicles, reduce pedestrian risks at street crossings, provide sidewalks and separate from vehicle traffic, improve awareness and visibility, and improve pedestrian motorist's behaviors. That's really important and I'm really happy to be in that committee. Friday, I did the Meal on Wheels, again, which was very satisfying, and I also did the Munch and Music. And that was the last one for this year, but it's a free program. This was done by the Fountain Hills' Saxophone Quartet and it's free to the public. There was probably 200 people there and it's just a wonderful thing that our town provides to the community center. The following Tuesday, I did go to Amanda's Economic Downtown briefing. Thanks, Page 6 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 7 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Amanda, for that. We got to exchange a lot of good ideas. It was very productive. Later that afternoon, I too attended the Joint Mayor Council and Chamber's session to establish better communication, share ideas, and improve the business climate in Fountain Hills. The chamber's staff were friendly, professional, and very informative. I'm looking forward to making this a regular part of our meeting schedule, maybe on a quarterly basis. Last Friday, this was probably the highlight of my two weeks, the Salt River Project (SRP), invited myself and other officials to go on a helicopter tour of their water shed and of Arizona. And so although 1 do suffer with motion sickness and 1 am afraid of heights, it was too good to pass up. So they took us up, I was with Solange Whitehead, she's in the city council for the city of Scottsdale with many other of my colleagues. And we had just a spectacular tour. We saw the watershed. In case people don't know, Salt River Project encompasses two separate entities. The Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, an agency of the State of Arizona that serves the electric utility and the Phoenix metropolitan area and the Salt River Water Users Association, a competitive cooperation that serves as the primary water provider for much of Arizona. So they've got a lot on their plate. Lastly, earlier today, 1 attended, by Zoom, because I had to be at this meeting tonight, the League of Arizona Cities and Towns Public Safety, Military Affairs, and Courts Policy Committee meeting. This is done by the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, and it provides an important link between the 90 incorporated cities and the towns in Arizona. There was around 25 people from cities and towns from all over our state. They were all mayors, vice mayors, and council people that were there to provide direction for possible future legislation or to just table ideas. So it's an exchange of ideas for the betterment of our whole state. The policy committee framework was established to give city and town elected officials and its staff the opportunity to provide direction and expertise to the league. So anyway, that's what 1 did today. It was very rewarding. That's been my two weeks. And thanks for coming, again and God bless. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Counselmember? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well the paint is finally off my hands so Page 7 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 8 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES well -- don't have to go into that. I did attend a CAP seminar. It's the Central Arizona Project. And that is the water canal system from the Colorado River fastening how federal policy dictates that and how it affects Arizona and our water supply. A little bit different with the SRP, because that is our own water shed, not the federal government's water shed. So 1 did that and actually 1 did one, because it was very brief, about 35 minutes ago, when I let the varsity baseball game, we were up 7-1 and that was the end of the fourth inning, and we were doing a really good job. So -- and that's a playoff game, so go Falcons. MAYOR DICKEY: Great. Thank you so much. So this is the part of the agenda now that we do the proclamations. I'm doing a proclamation -- 1 was asked for Jewish - American Heritage Month. Nobody could come to accept it, so I will read it from here. From Combat Antisemitism, whereas on April 20th, 2006, after resolutions passed unanimously in both houses of congress, President George Bush proclaimed that May would be Jewish -American Heritage Community Month to recognize more than 350 year history of Jewish contributions to America and culture and whereas the proclamation read: "The Jewish -American experience is a story of faith fortitude, and progress. It's a quintessential American experience, one that is connected to key tenants of American identity, including our nation's commitments to freedom, religion, and conscious. This month we honor Jewish -Americans, past and present who have inextricably woven their experiences and their accomplishments into the fabric of our national identity. Whereas throughout our history, American Jews have made major contributions to society in culture and science, medicine, the arts, business, sports, technology, government, and military service. And whereas, as we celebrate the rich heritage of the Jewish -American community, we recognize that American Jews have joined with all faiths to work for "Tikkun Olam", which is "repair of the world", remembering the lessons of the holocaust and to play leading roles in movements for civil rights and social justice. And whereas the Anti -Defamation League found citizens of antisemitism -- I'm sorry, found instances of antisemitism in America continuing". Page 8 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 9 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Now, therefore, I, Ginny Dickey, Mayor, do declare the month of May to be Jewish - American Heritage Month in the town of Fountain Hills and encourage all to celebrate the history and contributions of Jewish Americans to our culture and society. We will scan this and send this off to that organization. 1 went to MAG as always, our MAG executive board, I mean, the elections are happening for the executive board so 1 was asked to serve on the nominating committee of that so I'll be doing that throughout this month. We met with some sister city's folks for some -- to discuss future projects. Did some of the things that the folks up here spoke about. Met with members of the Avenue Merchants Association and the staff. Met with some neighbors who I see here, about the potential rezone with the Vice Mayor. And last, I had a fun chance to sing again, with my sister, after all these years, where the theater announced their upcoming season. So that was just a fun -- reminded me of the good old times. So anyway, our next item, we will have a presentation. So I understand -- so this is a recognition of a Golden Rules Heroes Recipient, and her name is Charlotte Kasabuski, and she lived here, but she's no longer here in town. So Dr. Albert Celoza, who is from the Interfaith Movement, is going to present this. He will say a few words, I'll come down, and I will accept it on her behalf. But t also wanted to mention that Councilwoman Grzybowski had gone last year, 1 think to the capital, and she represented us, but the whole reason were a Golden Rule Community is because it was a project of Mayor's Youth Council a couple of years ago. So I'll come down and ask you to say some words. Thank you. CELOZA: Good evening, Madam Mayor. My name is Albert Celoza, I am the executive director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement. 2 years ago -- 20 years ago, Governor Jan Brewer, proclaimed Arizona as a Golden Rule state. Two years ago, thanks to you, you proclaimed Fountain Hills a Golden Rule town. Now, I would like to emphasize that this is so important to all of us. Oh, 1 would like to address it and 1 will not fully address it, even though 1 can speak for a long time. I would like to make a point that the golden rule is due to others what you would not be done unto you, and I know all of you know about this. And so the golden rule is something that is present in all the religions of the world. And so I have so much appreciation for all that Page 9 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 10 0/ 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES you do, Madam Mayor, and the -- and the town of Fountain Hills. One thing that I would like to share with you is I write articles in the Arizona Republic. I heard one report saying that there was this man who helped clean up the garbage. If I have heard that news, I will write about it, because what -- what -- what do we want to happen? We want to have kindness, civility, empathy, and respect. That's what we want to promote. So Madam Mayor, it is my distinct honor to present to you the certificate of Golden Rule Hero. And so I hope that in the coming months, we will partner together, and I will get news from Ms. Mendenhall to you, members of the city council, all the good things happening here in Fountain Hills, and I will write about them. Actually, the city of Surprise had been covered twice already So we need for Fountain Hills to do the same. So that's all I'm going to say. And so I would love to hear your your response. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Well why don't we have a photo here and then I'll thank you for your acknowledgement. CELOZA: Thank you for that And I would like to post this photo on our wcbsite and who knows, this might land in the Arizona Republic. Okay. I am so honored to be here. Thank you very much and thanks to all of you. MAYOR DICKEY: And not for us, for Charlotte, and we'll get that. Thank you for this. CELOZA: Okay. Bye bye to everybody. MAYOR DICKEY: So Charlotte, wherever you are, this is for you. We'll get this to you. Thank you so much. Our next item is, let's see, call to the public. I'll ask you to please speak into the microphone. I just keep hearing that people aren't hearing, so just get it right up there and we would appreciate that so much. Our first speaker cards. Yes, thank you. MENDENHALL: Our first speaker, is Crystal Cavanaugh. CAVANAUGH: Also known as a frequent flyer, according to the letters to the editor. The rezoning of the R I0 Parcel at Mountainside and Palisades was publicly noticed in the newspaper, posted on zoning signs, and neighbors were alerted by the town that it would be on tonight's agenda. Then, at the 11 th hour, it was cancelled and delayed for over a month until June 6th. Needless to say, this caused much angst within the Mountainside Lost Hills community. The neighbors were also upset to learn that there were private individual meetings Page 10 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 11 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES between the developer and one or more council members, which although allowed, had an outside appearance of impropriety, considering the item was then abruptly pulled from tonight's agenda at the developer's request. Who here made the decision to pull it from the agenda and for what possible reason? The developer's reps had already presented on at least two public occasions. How could they not be ready? Or were they just not ready to be not -- to be denied a rezone, and the decision to deny rezoning is the right one. Once again, this boils down to the issue of land use. We need to be able to depend on our current zoning unless there's a significant and compelling reason to rezone. That is certainly not the case for the Mountainside Neighborhood, of course, there are the usual threats that without a rezone, all 70 units will be placed on the R 4 parcel, resulting in higher density, taller, smaller, 500 square foot units. However, a rezone will actually guarantee 80 high density apartments in the Lost Hills single family neighborhood. Without a rezone, there is a chance the multifamily R 4 parcel can't support the stated 70 units, especially if the town officials hold firm and do not waive requirements with regards to washes, slope, or cut and fill. A smaller number of multifamily units on the R 4 would be much more manageable for this neighborhood to absorb. In the past, a local realtor marketed this parcel as being appropriate for 30 units. Realtors usually maximize and not minimize potential. The neighborhood overwhelmingly does not support rezoning, which would guarantee the higher number of apartments being spread over two parcels and while the project directly and negatively affects Mountainside Lost Hills the most, a rezone and influx of people affects all of us; since many of us travel this area daily. A rezone sets and unwanted precedent for future rezoning, which is not in the best interest of other existing neighborhoods. The issue should have remained on the agenda tonight for the council to vote yes, or no, or to continue. The developer could have requested a delay here, publicly and out in the open, with comments from the community. Because of the mismanagement of this, you are being served formally with one notice from one neighbor who thinks procedures have been violated. You also have received 75 others in your inbox. The council needs to explain its actions, how those actions came to be, and immediately place this rezoning issue on the very next council agenda on May Page 11 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 12 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 16th. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: I don't know, Aaron. No, no. If that happens again, we're going to recess and well be here all night. No applause, please, on any speakers. Aaron, is that -- arc we able to say anything about this supposed impropriety? ARNSON: It -- yes, at the -- at -- Mayor and Council you can respond to criticism with respect to this -- with respect to the item. Typically -- MAYOR DICKEY: Well, I mean, -- ARNSON: Typically -- go ahead. MAYOR DICKEY: Well, 1 mean, would you please respond to the legal, the legality of somebody who is now a property owner in our community, not wanting to perhaps go any further or does or doesn't'? 1 mean, it's not for us to say. ARNSON: Oh, I see. Yeah, Mayor. Mayor and Council. I mean, that -- that I don't actually know how it came to be, but that being said, items arc moved from the agenda whether there zoning or otherwise, regularly. So it's not outside of the realm of what's happened in the past and what I assume will happen in the future. If an applicant isn't prepared to move forward, you can't haul them here and and make them -- make them present. So 1 don't know if that answers your question, Mayor, but that's the situation were in. FRIEDEL: I have a question Aaron, but should I wait till the end of the call of the public to ask it? ARNSON: If -- if you -- if you want to ask it now, go for it. FRIEDEL. Okay. Is it possible for the town staff to reach out to the applicant and see if he's interested in moving this on to the next next agenda? ARNSON: I'll -- 1 don't know if Mr. Wesley's here -- Director Wesley's here tonight. I'll defer to him. I -- I don't know. I've had no conversations with the applicant. WESLEY: Mayor, Councilmember, we could certainly do that whcn they did come to us and -- and request a continuance, they did specifically request the -- the June meeting. At this point, Aaron, I'd come back to a question about notice because we're not specifically continuing it. We're going to have to notice it and it's really too late to notice for the May 16th meeting at this point. 1 would think that would be our -- our legal challenge. SKILLICORN: Is that really the case though if it's been noticed through planning and Page 12 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 13 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES zoning, like what, a month two months ago? So it's been properly noticed. WESLEY: Specific meeting date has not been noticed for the May 16th meeting at this point, and so while the public obviously knows about it, to meet all the legal requirements, we are going to have to actually re -notice it whether it's the May 16th or the June 6th or June 20th, whatever meeting, at this point to meet legal notice requirements of 15 days. We couldn't do that for the May 16th meeting. ARNSON: And I'll agree with Director Wesley that -- one way or another, whether it's a P&Z hearing or a council hearing, the specific date of the meeting has to be noticed. So that's -- that's what ARS 9, somewhere in 9-4 something requires, yeah. MAYOR DICKEY: Because it was lit up. That's all. Yeah, that's okay. Well, basically the -- 1 think I mentioned that I met with the -- the neighbors and 1 was happy to do so. And I met with the developers too, of course. We have to get as much information as we can, but again, any -- we have a lot of projects that are on -- that are ongoing and then they ask for extensions, or they don't come to fruition for one reason or another. So this is not unusual, and we can't treat someone differently, a property owner, one property owner, differently in the town, then somebody else. And the agenda was never publicized with this item on it. So next, please. MENDENHALL. Doreen DeLucia. DELUCIA: Good evening. I'm Doreen DeLucia. The meeting was at our home on Thursday evening with Ginny, Dicky, and Peggy. I'm here because I am upset about how it went about that the agenda was removed and how we were notified. It was the evening of the meeting on Thursday that, oh, by the way, the meeting has been postponed. The developer asked for more time -- I think that the appropriate way would to have been to keep it on the agenda for this evening and then they asked for a continuance, postponement, whatever. The neighborhood is very upset about the way things have been handled. I don't want to go back over what Crystal had said because everything she said is, again, how we feel. But the -- the bottom line is -- is that the rezone, it needs to be just the focus of the rezone. That is the agenda item. It's not about so much of all of what they can and cannot do just on their property, we are only opposing the rezone of the R 10 lot. 1 live directly across the street from there, and it does affect us. And it does affect the whole Page 13 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 14 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES entire neighborhood and community. The number one thing is traffic. Obviously, it does affect our property values to have apartments go there. But 1 think the bottom line on that also is that the town is here to support the residents. We're the ones who elected you to represent us and to respect our feelings and our livelihood. And the reason why we moved here -- we all moved here for peace and quiet. The small-town community and I think we need to uphold what was put in place many, many years ago in zoning, which is a promise -- a promise that that's the community that we -- we bought into, that we knew we were going to live at. We've made choices. If I wanted to live in an area that was congested with apartments and 1 wanted that type of life, I would have made that choice. But that's not where I live, and I think that it would do all of you guys some good to think about how you would feel if you lived there and what you would be up against with traffic and safety for the children, for people who walk every single day. So I think the way that all of this has been handled, should have been handled a different way. And I think that you need to respect the fact that this is about us, not a developer that's coming to town and he doesn't live here, he doesn't enjoy our way of life, and we should become -- we should be put first, not the developer. So I appreciate you listening and thank you. MENDENHALL. Next, we have Geri Hughes. HUGHES: My name is Geri Hughes. I live at the Village of the Town Center. Can you hear me? Okay. 1 live at the Village at the Town Center and what my concern is today is I am representing Bruce and Dee Pearson, who also live at the Village of the Town Center. They live -- they could not be here today, and they live at unit 1080, which is the bottom level of the building 27. Okay. 1 will read their letter. Mayor Dickey and the Fountain Hills Town Council. My wife, Dee and I are residents of the Village at Town Center, unit 1080 in building 27. My -- the building most adversely affected by the relocation of the community garden. Initially, we were pleased that the relocated community garden would be our neighbor. At that time, we had no understanding how the relocation would adversely affect our home. We have three primary concerns. Our view, aesthetically considerations, and to our safety. Page 14 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 15 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Before going into detail, we believe that if we had had the opportunity to meet prior to the construction and that our concerns be considered, we would not be here expressing our concerns and complaints. You may not have a legal obligation to share the plans, but if you want to be neighborly, that is good neighbors, you should have first, met with us, shared your plans, heard and considered our concerns, and if possible, make appropriate changes. Don't you want to be good neighbors and have our concerns as residents in your community be considered'? Our view prior to construction, we had a beautiful view of the mountains and landscape. Now, living in the lower unit, we look up to see cinder block structures and two unslightly shacks with almost no view of the mountains and landscape. Will you fence further? Will the fence further inhibit our view? Our upstairs neighbors look down on the structures, wheelbarrows, and othcr gardening equipment. How would you like for this to be your view? It would be a good start if the shacks were moved to allow us to regain some of our view. The community garden planners did not consider us. Had our concerns been considered, I'm confident we would have varied. We would have a very different community garden plan. Aesthetic considerations. Once the shacks are moved, they, along with the cinder block structures, need to be painted an attractive color. That's it. Okay. I also live there. Although it is not adversely impacting my view, I really understand what Mr. and Mrs. Pearson's concern is. Thank you very much. MENDENHALL: Next, we have Mick Pierson. PIERSON: My name is Mick Pierson and I spell it different from Bruce Pearson. We're -- we're not related. Good afternoon. My name is Mick Pierson and I live at the Village of Town Center. And our second -floor condo overlooks the garden. And 1 am looking forward to its completion. However, 1 wish the Garden Design Committee would have asked for our input since we are your immediate neighbors. At the moment, there is a three -sided cinder block structure for housing garbage cans, wheelbarrows, wire rolls, and assorted garden tools. At present, there is no plan to enclose this three -sided structure. Section 5.18 and 5.12 of Fountain Hills Code addresses the concern of no gate or door for shielding public view of these materials. Our second -floor patio looks directly into the structure. Page 15 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 16 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Secondly, the placement of the mulch piles is on caliche soil, which is very nonporous. During the monsoon season this year, there was a huge puddle that gathered and did not go anywhere for three days. During a heavy rain, where will the runoff from the mulch pile go? Has there been an environmental study regarding this scenario? Also, has there any been any study regarding fire codes for open air mulch piles? Has there been any study regarding offensive odors coming from this mulch pile? My neighbors and I wish these concerns could have been addressed prior to the beginning of the process, because we would have liked to have some input. Thank you very much. MENDENHALL: Next, we have Jean Caskey. CASKEY: Hello. And guess where I'm from? I'm an -- a property owner at the Village at Town Center, a complex that shares a border with the town property which is now leased or occupied by the newly relocated community garden. I, and the others represented here, support having a community garden. However, visual, health, safety, and security issucs have been created by the lack of communication the town has had with us, its immediate neighbors to the mentioned project. Among the concerns arc fences. Why was a Village at Town Center not consulted about fencing? We share a border. Now there will be two fences back-to-back with 27 inches in between, and each a different color, style, and height. That is not only visually unattractive, but it does not allow any room in between the fences to maintain the fences. And currently, there are a number of invasive and unsightly weeds between the fence -- fences, which need to be removed. So who is responsible for the maintenance? And when will that be taken care of? And furthermore, because of the new arrangement of the fencing that has created more privacy, security, and safety issues for us at the Village at Town Center. Another issue is the traffic, dust, and the noise. Construction vehicles continually use the arca closest to residential areas, approximately 20 feet from our patios. Why did any of this need to take place directly in front of us when this, but when the public parking lot could have easily been utilized for this purpose? Why did a mountain of dirt have to be dumped directly in front of our condos and remain there for the past four months? The area in front of the Village of Town Center should not be accessed for construction or delivery vehicles in the future. Enough is enough. It is not a road. My colleague -- or Page 16 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 17 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES my neighbor has spoken about the compost, cinder blocks. We would like them to be relocated to another area and there must be some Maricopa County environmental and solid waste codes that need to be followed with a garden of approximately 130 beds. After all, this isn't a small plot in someone's backyard. And lastly, we feel that the town as the landlord, should take more responsibility for the lack of communication about this project that shares the border with us. We are not, after all, this is not a private residential property. It is a town property, and we too are taxpayers who share a border with the town property. Communication is key to being a good neighbor. We want to be good neighbors. We believe you do too, and it's not too late to start helping each other. Thank you. MENDENHALL: Wendy Kelleher. KELLEHER: And 1 represent the Board of Directors at the Village of Town Center Homeowners Association, the town of Fountain Hills owns two parcels that border us. One large parcel on our west and one on our north. A lot 70 feet wide and 471 feet long, extending from the Centennial Circle to Verde River Drive. These are public parcels and taxpayers should have some say in how they are developed. You've heard tonight and in the past -- past few weeks, our frustration with what happened because we were not given a voice during the planning stages of the parcel along our west border, setting a bad precedent. Please know that what happens on both of these parcels affects not only the five adjacent buildings, but our entire community in terms of property values, maintenance costs, a mutual quality of life, and we deserve a right to have a voice in what happens there. Therefore, we are asking the council tonight to consider the following three solutions to the problems we now face on our west border. First, cost share a hedge between the properties to extend from the retaining wall behind building 26 to the southern edge of our property, El Lago Boulevard. Fountain Hills' cost would be to provide approximately 30 medium-sized bushes or trees. Our cost to plant and provide water, weekly maintenance. Second cost share, one modified fence extending from the corner of Centennial Circle all the way to El Lago. We would then remove our existing fence with both entities maintaining and weeding on either side. Fountain Hills' cost would be to continue building the fence. Our cost would be to remove the existing fence and then Page 17 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 18 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES maintain the landscaping along the new fence. And then third, which you've already heard from my colleagues in the Village of Town Center. Number one, construct a gate across the front of both cinder block structures to screen the street level. Two, erected a canopy over the top of the structures in order to screen the overhead view. Three, plant low, fast growing bushes between the properties and around the structures, and four, paint the shacks aesthetically pleasing in earth tones so they blend. The bottom line, Mayor Dickey, Councilman and women, is communication and cooperation. We are willing to cost share with you and the garden managers to create a thing of beauty along our borders, but we must have your commitment that you will meet us halfway. Will you do that? Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. I know we had that thing about waiting till the end, but can wcjust do this? Thanks. FRIEDEL: I -- I know they're going to be doing some painting out there, but can we look into these other solutions? Is there something we can do from the town's aspect? Can we contact the landscape architect and the garden and maybe get a meeting set up so that maybe we can go over these items? GOODWIN: I think that would be wise and I will share that we've had a number of meetings with them, and I know we've reviewed a number of plans. I know Director Welders been involved as well as Director Wesley, so there's been a number of staff engaged in this process. My understanding, and I'm not going to hold them, I mean, when they shared it with us, there was a discussion of gates across the front of the structures, as well as plantings, and other things to help shield. So 1 do believe that that is in the works, but it would be great to make sure that everybody's getting the same message. FRIEDEL: And I know they're going to do some painting out there too, so we need to verify all that and then get back to these people and let them know what the plan is. GOODWIN: Correct. FRIEDEL: All right. Thank you. MENDENHALL: Next, we have Michael Rogala. ROGALA: Good evening. My name is Michael Rogala. R-O-G-A-L-A. I'm here just to Page 18 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 19 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES make some comments about the homeless. I would like to state my concerns that the -- this -- discussions of the homeless encampments and other homeless issues have been put off till -- until June. This not only delays meaningful discussions, but has harmful effects on those who are so disadvantaged due to the rising temperatures and the potential heat - related illnesses. There is an easy solution for this problem. Community Bridges Incorporated is a statewide organization dedicated to the homeless, those with addictions and behavioral problems. They have been in Arizona for 42 years and have a comprehensive plan for patients who fall into any of these categories. The plan includes crisis centers, inpatient detox, inpatient psych assessments for seriously mental ill status, so they can be given a case manager and housing, medical and psychiatric care. They have residential rehabs and even have a residential facility for battered women. There is one nearby in Mesa. All we have to do is provide the person in -- in question with a ride for this assistance. If the person refuses these services, then it should be up to the hands of the police as to -- to proceed with this. But the system is in place, and it works. We don't need to reinvent the wheel and attempt to provide services here. If anyone has questions, my wife is a physician who works at these facilities and could attend -- and could not attend tonight and can -- can be contacted if anyone has any questions or anything that concerns that. She would be glad to help. MENDENHALL: And next, we have Kimberly Bartman. BARTMAN: Hello, Mayor and council. I'm Kimberly Gartman, and I've lived in town over 20 years, and I appreciate you guys all offering your service to our community. I just -- after hearing about the golden rule, and I guess we've been a golden rule community for a couple years. 1'11 leave this very open and not attack anyone personally. But I've seen a lot of social media posts from certain people, and 1 know that certain people do not -- that block some of the -- their constituents from being able to comment on their social media. And 1 -- I've seen some really negative things said about the LGBTQ community and different religions, especially Muslims. And I appreciate -- and also negative things about people moving here from California that is just really upsetting. There's people from California that arc from -- that are Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Democrats. Page 19 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 20 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES We don't need to put down people moving here from California. 1 think that's -- we're all from -- a lot of us are from somewhere else. I know Hannah, you're here, you're born and raised, but a lot of us arc here from other places and 1 really encourage you all, in your social media, when someone calls out and says something negative about the LGBTQ community, Muslims, or pcoplc from California, that you would speak up and support everyone in our town. Thank you. MENDENHALL: That's it for public comment. MAYOR DICKEY: Thanks very much. We appreciate everything that you've said, and we'll follow up as we can. Our -- our next item is our consent agenda. And unless anybody wants something off can I get a motion, please'? MCMAHON: Move to approve the consent agenda. FRIEDEL: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call, please'? MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Ayc. MENDENHALL: Council Mcmbcr Friedel'? FRIEDEL- Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey'? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. MENDENHALL: Passes unanimously. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Thank you. So our first agenda item is the appointment of members to towns, boards, and commissions. You can read in our packet what our Page 20 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 21 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES process is. These names have been forwarded to me for appointment as follows. First, we have P&Z. We have two commissioners, Patrick Dapaah and Scott Schlossberg, have been reappointed for a full term. For SPAC, which is Strategic Plan Advisory Commission two commissioners, Geoff Yazzetta and Cynthia Magazine have been reappointed for full term. For the Community Services Advisory Commission, Rory Wilson and Craig Rudolphy. And last, we had a vacancy on SPAC and that is being filled by Phil Sveum. So these were the member -- these were the names that were forwarded to me and appointed as recommended. Could I get a motion please? MCMAHON: Motion to approve the committee appointments. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Second, please. GRZYBOWSKI: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Roll call? MENDENHALL: Council Member Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Friedel'? FRIEDEL: Ayc. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicom? SKILLICORN: No. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Ayc. Thank you for wanting to serve again and appreciate all your work on the commissions. Our next item is -- and 1, oh and thank you to the subcommittees as well for making the recommendations. Our next item is about abandoning an easement on Leo. JANOVER: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Nice to be here. And I'm Dave Janover, your town engineer, and I'm here to talk about the request for an easement Page 21 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 22 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES abandonment at 9048 North Leo Drive. First, I just want to say this is kind of an opportunity for us to kind of discuss what easements are. It's a kind of an opportunity for a very brief, just a very brief lesson on what casements are -- the -- just to define them, what the uses are of easements, how they limit a property for owners, and then an overview of our town's casement abandonment process. And then just an overall discussion of tonight's subject application at 9048 Leo. So what is an casement? An easement is defined as a specified area on a lot or a parcel of land that's reserved or used for the location of and gain access to utilities, drainage, or other physical access purposes, or for the preservation of undisturbed terrain for the benefit of the general public. So an easement, if an easement placed on someone's property, that property owner still owns that area, it's owned by the property owner for which the easement lies on, but it can be used or accessed by others depending upon the type of easement that it is. So type of-- what are the types of easements? Well, we see drainage easements, public utility easements, and the one that we're talking about tonight is a combined drainage and public utility easement. We see non -vehicular access easements, hillside protection easements, scenic easements, private easements, which don't involve an entity like the -- a government entity or a public utility, but it's between two or more private parties, such as a shared driveway that straddles a common property line between two properties, so resident A has to go over Resident B's property to get to their own property. So it's just, that's just what -- what easements are. So Fountain Hills was master planned with a plethora of public utility and drainage easements known as PUEs/DEs and these, we see a lot of these on our filed maps that were done pre incorporation, before the Fountain Hills was incorporated in 1989. And the filed maps show the locations and the dimensions of the easements. They're actually on the filed maps, and these maps are filed with the county, and these are officially designated easements. So you can see on the -- the area to the right over here. This is actually the subject parcel right here, which is labeled number 14, that's 9048 Leo and you can see it has an easement on the west side and the south side, but this particular map also has easements elsewhere lying between numerous properties. It's kind of uncommon to -- to -- to just Page 22 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 23 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES place easements as a matter of course, without really planning where you're going to need them. These were kind of done kind of overkill. I guess the thought was pre incorporation, that we were going to have lots of public utilities and things like that running behind lots -- between and between lots. But that's not really the case. There are a few locations in the -- in the town where we do have some utilities behind lots, but for the most part they're within our right of way and the sanitary district has sewer pipes actually in our washes. So kind of uncommon to see this like kind of everywhere. So the existence of a public utility and a drainage easement, like when we were talking about tonight on the property, can limit the use of that portion of the property by the property owner. The property owner is typically not allowed to construct a permanent improvement within a PUE/DE, a public utility easement drainage easement, and think like retaining walls, swimming pools, patios, things like that, fences, walls, retaining walls, et cetera. So the utility companies, they reserve the right to enter into the property at any time if they have an easement on it to either install infrastructure as needed or to enter the property to access or maintain existing infrastructure, which are electric lines, communication lines, things like that. If the owner constructs a pool or a fence within a public utility easement, the utility company can enter the property and remove a portion of or remove the entirc improvement as the-- as the public utility needs to do. MAYOR DICKEY: Just real quick, but they would have needed a permit for that and we wouldn't have given it to them, right? JANOVER: Yes, so so normally if anything that requires a permit, we would take a look at that and say I'm, I'm sorry it's -- it's in a public utility casement, you need to either abandon the easement or you -- you can't -- you have to relocate that particular improvement. So we do have an easement abandonment process in place here in the town. So most type of abandonments, not all of them, but most types require a resolution and a Council action. The type that does not is a hillside protection easement that -- that -- that could be done administratively, but a drainage utility, a drainage casement, and public utility easement needs to go through the resolution process and -- and Council action and we do have a process in place for property owners to come into the town and abandon public utilities that are on there, exist on their property. The first thing that they need to do before anything is they have to contact each of the six Page 23 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 24 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES public utilities to request the utilities approval on the easement abandonment And those utilities are eco, water, fountain hill, sanitary district, southwest gas, SRP, Cox and Lumen, which is formerly CenturyLink. So every utility company has to approve the easement abandonment and each utility -- each utility will then send a letter of approval or denial to the owner. If a utility says Oh, you know what we are going to be? We have a plan in the next five years to put some utilities down this area, we do not agree to abandon it. At that point, the whole thing is moved. We pretty much will deny the abandonment completely based on that. So every utility has to say yes. The owner or the applicant then submits an online application to the town through our tops online permitting system for the easement abandon. And that application is going to include a map or exhibit, some kind of letter as to why they want to do the easement abandonment, the utility approval letters, and the easement abandonment application fee of$730. So staff will review that submittal, make sure it's complete, will ensure that all utility companies approve the abandonment, and we'll also conduct our own drainage and topography review just to ensure that the historic drainage patterns are still being met because we do rely on lot to lot drainage for storm water and we just need to make sure that that's still being met. And then once we figure out that, yes, this is all good, all the utilities are on board, the town has no issue, town staff then creates some additional exhibits and we draft a resolution for the abandonment of the easement and that's typically what you will see in your consent agenda because you sec a lot of these they pass through in your consent agendas. But this one has some public interest in it. So that's why this is was pulled off and that's what we're talking about it tonight. So then town staff sends out letters to the all of the owners of the properties that are adjacent to the property that's requesting the easement abandonment, just to advise those neighbors of the request for the abandonment and the Council date as to when it's going to be heard. So then they can come out. Council then renders the decision at the meeting on the resolution for the easement abandonment. And if the resolution is approved, the mayor, Page 24 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 25 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES town manager, the town attorney, and the town clerk sign that resolution and then staff takes that signed resolution and the exhibit, and we record that with the county. So that's pretty much the easement abandonment process and if -- and if the easement is not abandoned, if -- if it's decided that it will not be abandoned, then the casement remains in place and pretty much everything else that I said, that utility can come on there at any time. So now let's talk about the situation and -- and the circumstances that surround this particular application at 9048 North Leo. So the homeowners at 9048 North Leo Drive removed quite a number of mature trees and vegetation from their yard, as well as from adjacent property. This caused quite a disturbance with surrounding neighbors and I think, I believe, some number of them are here tonight. And the NPOA, which is the Neighborhood Property Owners Association, directed the homeowners of 9048 North Leo to replant the trees and the vegetation. Now, the homeowners submitted a landscape plan to the town showing this proposed revegetation plan, and the plan was reviewed by the town senior planner. Now this is kind of a one off. This is not something that we normally see because the town doesn't really we -- we don't have jurisdiction over a homeowners decision to remove plants, or trees, or vegetation on their own property. We do have jurisdiction when that vegetation affects the right of way. If-- so if someone has a tree that's on their property and it's leaning over and causing an obstruction, leaning into either into the sidewalk arca or if it's causing an obstruction of site visibility at an intersection, then we have the right -- the town has the right to go and request that -- request and direct that owner to either cut back the tree, trim the tree back, or remove the vegetation to remove that obstruct. But if it's this is trees that are on the -- the rear of somebody's property, the town normally does not even get involved with that. However, the NPOA does have the jurisdiction regarding vegetation on private property -- on certain properties, this being one of them. And the town, therefore, performed a courtesy review of the landscape plan because of -- of the NPOA's involvement. Now the town normally doesn't have any issues with homeowners planting trees or vegetation within an existing public utility easement area because it's not the same as installing a wall or a pool, right? The planting of trees doesn't require a permit Page 25 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 26 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES from the town. So as someone can -- if they have a -- a -- a public utility easement on their property, they can -- they can plant vegetation, there's no issue with that. Obviously, if the utility company needs to come in for some reason, they'll just clear out the trees. They have no issue with that. But if there's a pool there or something like that, that was unpermitted, that's a different story. So the homeowners requested the easement be abandoned now to avert the possibility of a future utility placement and to, really, just to protect their investment and the landscaping that they put in so that at some point later on, if-- if right now all the utilities arc fine with abandoning it, they want to abandon it. So that it averts any future possibility of utilities maybe going in and then them losing their the value that they put in with the trees. This is a -- an aerial view showing 9048 Leo with the two abandonments -- that are two casements that are requested to be abandoned, one on the west side, which is 10 foot wide, and this other one on the south side, which is 10 foot wide. So that was my brief overview of -- of this application. I'm here to answer questions and I believe that there are some folks that may want to talk on this one and so I will. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Unless you have questions for David, I'll have speakers come up. Yes, sir. SKILLICORN: Mic should be on, Madam Mayor. David, can you leave that up, please? JANOVER: Yes. Absolutely. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, speaker cards please. MENDENHALL: Lisa Romero ROMERO: Good evening, everyone. As a concerned Fountain Hills resident I am speaking to the Council about the Palmers property and the request to have the town abandon the easement. If you look at the Palmers' lot, you will notice that they have adequate land to plant their trees below the easement on their land. Onc would think the reason they would not want to do this is because they have a plan to do something else on that piece of lot -- of their lot where they would have to plant their trees if they did not use this easement for planting. Why should the other affected properties who've been there longer than them, give up their right to have this easement in place to suit the Palmers? Perhaps the Palmers don't want to plant on their property versus the easement Page 26 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 27 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES because the water from all the needed irrigation will conic down to come down the hill to their property or to their home, excuse me, versus planting in the easement will direct the water to the surrounding lots by the mere force of gravity. Food for thought. Now, these affected property owners would not be allowed to encroach on the Palmers' lot because they have a project and so allowing for the town to vacate this easement is allowing the Palmers to encroach closer to the affected landowners. One really needs to question why planting in this easement is so vital to the Palmers. There seems to be more to this picture than what is being told to the town. Why is the town putting the Palmers' need first over three property owners that have been there longer that do not want this? Doesn't majority rule? Prior to the Palmers beginning their landscaping project, the lot was well landscaped, and it was a nice addition to the neighborhood. This lot no longer fits in with the surrounding properties and clearly is an eyesore. I would suggest you take a ride by and look at the property, particularly the property lines. I'm confident that you will see what everyone else sees and do what's best to protect the other landowners. Because if you actually drove by there, I would actually have each and every one of you put yourself in the shoes of the neighbors surrounding this piece of property. Thank you very much. MENDENHALL: Next we have Kimberly Butcher. BUTCHER: Hi, my name is Kimberly Butcher and I'm one of the neighbors that's affected. Basically, I'm just going to read to you -- it was just a very confusing event that happened. I received a letter on April 17th, 2023, stating 1 had until April 25th, 2023, to provide input for the town Council meeting on May 2nd. I firmly oppose this abandonment, and I called Dave to tell him so and discuss what steps I needed to take next. This call was on April I8th, a week before the deadline date stated in the letter that was provided to me in the mail. Dave informed me that it was already approved and the request of the Palmers to abandon the easement had already been granted. The Palmers planted large trees, all within the easement the weekend of April 8th, 2023. I actually had a conversation with them and they had told me that they had asked the town to abandon the easement and I was like, wow, I wasn't aware of that at all. And then I get a letter in the mail about it. And Dave said that everything was already done. And I said, well, I just don't Page 27 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 28 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES understand, you know, Dave, the letter is asking for my opinion, if I have any opposition to this, but yet, you already granted them permission to go ahead and plant, and they told me that you did. I asked them in a very friendly, neighborly way. We were talking, and he said oh yeah, yeah, the letter is just a formality. You don't really have any rights in this, and I said I don't understand why then the letter was sent out to me if I don't really have any rights. So that's how it all began. So I said so the letter basically was just false information. So I just, you know, said to him, I'm just going to put this in an email and just say that I was not for this, that I would oppose it and I didn't understand why I wasn't giving my rights in the letter. And then I called him again and he said you can come to the meeting. And the only reason I didn't want the easement granted, like basically for me as the homeowner, is the easement has provided a ten -foot buffer to both homeowners. There was no reason to take away this boundary. I bought it this way. The easement has been in place many, many, many years. We all have very big lots there and there was just no reason to encroach and plant in the easement. No one needed that room to plant. It'd be different if everyone have really tiny lots there, but we don't. We have really nice large lots and plenty of room to plant. The trees they planted right now, are not that big, but they will grow. Those type of trees, I've looked them up, should be 40 to 50 feet tall and I do believe that they will come across the border. There was just no reason to have this issue that's now been created between neighbors. I mean, neighbors want to get along and there was just no reason to abandon this easement and now create this like for no reason. Everyone had plenty of room to plant. The Palmers have plenty room to plant. I have plenty of room to plant. There's no reason to go in that area. It was nice to have that buffer, so MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, ma'am. BUTCHER: I'm was opposed to it. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank -- thank you. Appreciate it. MENDENHALL: Next we have Cynthia Parke or it could be Paske. I'll let you tell me. PARKE: Okay. Good evening, Council. Good evening, Mayor. I'm here to express a statement regarding this easement. I am one of the property owners that's affected by this. We purchased our home full well knowing that there was an easement and we Page 28 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 19 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES actually found it to be beneficial to us. I had owned a previous property that had an easement and enjoyed the the liberties of that casement. Okay. It has been there for years. All parties have enjoyed the land as is. Why should the town change what has worked well for the majority of the land owners on this easement? Okay. Taking away the easement takes away the opportunity for any future utility lines. Now 1 know the -- all of those companies have been contacted and said at this, point they do not need this. 1 don't think they have a crystal ball. I don't think they can say that in 10 years from now, 20 years from now, they might not need that. They're saying in this moment in time they don't need it, so taking away that easement takes away that opportunity and I am not in favor of that. Okay. Why would a property owner give up an easement? Think about that for a second. The Palmers fully knew when they purchased their property that they had an easement there. They were well aware of it. They were well aware of it when they created their landscaping plan. They should have created their plan without affecting that easement. They had the opportunity to do so. Okay. As stated earlier, the Palmers have plenty of land to plant their trees and there is no real reason to plant in the easement. Okay. Or to ask for the easement to be taken away, one must really question what is the real reason for requesting the town to abandon this easement? There's something more to this picture, as usually is the case with the Palmers. I request that all of the affected property owners be given additional time to review this situation and determine, because we were notified very late, after the Butchers were. And it is, my understanding that there's another property owner that never was notified. So the process has not been -- the process outlined on the screens tonight, has not been followed. I'm requesting that we have additional time to evaluate the true real effects of this on our property. 1 request that the Board consider the majority of the affected affected property owners that do not want this. Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. ma'am. PARKE: I invite all of you to drive by and take a look at the property. Thank you very much. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Page 29 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 30 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL' And the last two are in your packet and they're -- so we have a letter from Cynthia Parke and Fred Eccles. And they are not in favor of it. And then we have another email from Karen and Hans -Peter Pfleger, and they are against the abandonment as well. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Linda. Questions or comments from Council, please? Hannah -- Councilwoman? TOTH: Thank you. David, if you wouldn't mind coming back up. So the Palmers, did they submit a application, pay their fee, that process you just walked me through? All of those things? So I notice in our packet we don't have their letter or their compelling reason, or 1 mean, I -- I cannot tell that they've applied for anything. JANOVER: Mayor and Councilmember Toth, it's actually -- it's in the staff report. The -- as far as the -- the -- the reason, I had reached out to the -- to the gentleman and -- and actually I didn't see a reason on his application. So I reached out and found out that it was -- it was for the plantings, so I did put that in -- that should be in -- the staff report. TOTH: Okay. So we don't have a a copy of their letter? They didn't send one at all? JANOVER: There it's -- it's -- it's -- it's actually it's -- it's part of the-- there arc utility letters and the -- it's all done electronically, and we actually have it -- on our system network, but it's not usually part of the -- the -- the Council packet. We don't include all of that in the Council packet like the other utilities. TOTH: Okay. That -- understood. That being considered, I don't know all the details behind this issue, and I don't think it's the Council's duty to get involved with the neighborly dispute. I'm not for touching this. JANOVER: Thank you. I just wanted to speak to one -- one item that one of the speakers brought up about someone not being not being notified, one of the residents. We actually reached out to every -- every resident. I believe that there are four. And we -- we used the mailing addresses as listed in the County Assessor's list and that -- I believe it was the last folks that Madam Clerk had mentioned the P-F Ptlagcrs. They -- we had actually mailed it to them at their Washington address, Bainbridge Island, Washington. That was actually the listed -- their listed location. That's why they didn't receive it, because they live here now full time, I guess. So we did actually do our due Page 30 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 31 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES diligence and -- and they did find out about it, which is the whole reason why we -- we actually have the -- the letter process, to -- to make everybody aware. And so they -- they were made aware, even if it wasn't by the letter, by -- by -- by -- by others. Just so that I understand this correctly, even with the easement there, all of the people pictured own that 10 feet of easement. It's just considered an easement by some random thing that whoever did it back before incorporation, thinking there -- there may be a need for accessing it for unknown, at the time, what it could be. All right, so I am correct'? JANOVER: Correct. GRZYBOWSKI: They - they legally own that property. They just can't use it for whatever purposes because it is legally an easement. I'm looking at -- and I -- I pulled it up on Google Maps and I didn't just do it now, but it looks like, and I'm pointing on my picture like that does you any good, but lot 13 and 12 each have driveway accesses to -- I can't remember that street that's to the top of the photo there. So that is probably where their water meters are now, that's where their cable is coming now, that's where their electrical lines now and -- and all that stuff are coming now, correct? JANOVER: Yes. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. One question that we had amongst ourselves is, we understand that generally these abandonments don't go to planning and zoning. Is that why it came to us? Because it's -- it's just not general practice that this kind of thing go to planning and zoning? JANOVER: Actually, Mayor and Council Member Grzybowski, all of the drainage, public utility easements, and drainage easement abandonments do actually come to this body. They're usually on the consent agenda. So when you approve the consent agenda, you're approving them and many, many times it's because someone wants to enjoy their property. They want to -- they want to abandon or vacate the easement so that they can build a pool, or they could build a wall, they could build a fence, they could -- they could do something and make better use of that. Just have a planting garden or -- GRZYBOWSKI: That was actually going to be my next question is, so if we allow this abandonment, then they could put in a wall if they wanted to, but it would have to -- or a fence. It would have to be a pre -approved because we've got ordinances in place for that. Page 31 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 32 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES JANOVER: If anything, would have to be zoning and would have to meet -- GRZYBOWSKI: So it's not like they can just go witty nilly, build a fence? You would still have to get it and and review it. Thank you. MCMAHON: Thank you for the explanation. They look, they've -- the Palmers is their name, they've complied with everything as far as asking the town to look at this. They filed the correct papers timely, notice, the whole nine yards. Okay. So I have a question because these slides seem to be different. Is the casement only on the Palmcrs' property or is there an easement on the adjoining properties? Because it looks like there is an easement on both of the properties. JANOVER: Yes. MCMAHON: On the surrounding -- the L, for lack of a better word -- on surrounding. So by abandoning this easement, there's still going to be ten feet or so of an of easement on the other lot owner's property. JANOVER: Mayor, Vice Mayor, that is correct. MCMAHON: Okay. So it's not going to exactly butt up against their property? Because I'm trying to understand -- and what's -- what -- what is being requested because as owners of the property, if the town has no use in having that and maintaining this easement, utilities etcetera have already been done. Of course, none of us have a crystal ball, but still, given the fact that there is another -- the easement also extends to the other. property owners, I guess I don't understand what the dispute is. JANOVER: So -- so when these easements were placed on here, typically it was at a 20- foot-wide easement, 10 feet on each side of the property, so -- and when an owner comes in to abandon the easement on their property, they're just abandoning their 10 feet. In this case, it's just their ten feet on their side. So if the other property owners wanted to come in separately and -- and abandon the ten feet on their side, that -- that's certainly their prerogative and there's nothing that would compel us to deny it. And that's really the the bottom line. There's nothing that compels us to deny that. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thank you, David. This, once again, this just seems to be a -- a-- a use deal that we've been facing a lot lately. What can you do with your own property? When I moved to Fountain Hills, I told them I didn't want a HOA or MPOA because that Page 32 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 33 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES was a restriction on my property. And if I could have told them at the time, I don't want any rights of ways or easements that would -- it would have even been better, because then my property would be unencumbered by anything. Okay. Which I think would be preferable. Tonight we're going to take on the 5G project and this -- this just reminds me of that. Since there is a right of way that -- that gives the state the right to encumber the property with telecommunications devices next to your mailbox. And so I think that's a bad idea. Easements and right of ways are designed for the public good. It's so they can run utilities and -- and other public services through people's properties that they bought. They paid for and they have a title to -- a deed to. And so you've got the general, the -- the general good, but once it becomes an easement that has been abandoned and that has been talked to by all the six entities that held the easement. They say we no longer have it. Well then it's an encumbrance for no reason, and that bothers me. Because what was stated tonight is well, the easement was providing a buffer for our property. Well, the easement wasn't designed for a buffer. It was designed to run utility lines. That was the designation. It wasn't designed to separate the properties. And so I -- I don't buy the buffer argument. They also said that it would give them the opportunity to invade their neighbor's properties with landscaping projects. Well, I don't see how landscaping your property is invading the other neighbor's property. Maybe they don't like that the landscaping is there, but if they do landscaping in compliance with town codes and with MPA codes and I -- I don't see any problem with that either. It seems -- it seems generally a good thing to do whatever you want with their property. If -- if there was an easement where they want to build a swimming pool, they might say, well, I don't want a swimming pool over there because I don't like water. So it seems to me that I would -- I think that this should be abandoned and -- and just -- just go back to -- to -- to the use of the property owner. That would be my opinion. JANOVER: Yeah, the -- certainly, and you're right. The benefit to the property owner is that it would uncloud the -- the -- the title by removing that -- that easement. GRZYBOWSK I: Mayor, I'm ready to make a motion. Move to adopt Resolution 2023- 13. Page 33 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 34 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MCMAHON: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Roll call, please. MENDENHALL: Council Mcmbcr Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Ayc. MENDENHALL: Council Mcmbcr Friedel'? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicorn? SKILLICORN: No. MENDENHALL: Council Member Toth? TOTH: No. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. MENDENHALL: And it passes five to two. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Thanks very much. Okay. Our next item is approval of a resolution regarding a moratorium on 5G services. Who's going to kick it off? Aaron? ARNSON: I'm happy to, Mayor. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. ARNSON: Mayor and Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this item tonight. As you're aware from the staff report, the Council directed staff to prepare an agenda item to temporarily prohibit 5G enabled small cell infrastructure within the town limits of the town of Fountain Hills. Staff did so and two resolutions, as well as a possible just oral motion absent any resolution, have been provided for the Council's consideration that, as stated in the staff report. The -- the Council is reminded of the federal rulings both from the FCC and that's been enshrined in statute, that do not permit moratoria, whether expresses -- express or de facto, and that more -- and that moratoria do -- do not pause shot clocks for approval of small wireless facilities. So but with that, this is brought forward at the Council's direction and it'll return it to the Mayor and Page 34 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 35 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Council for discussion. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. We'll go with the speaker cards first, please. MENDENHALL: First, we have Matthew Corrigan. CORRIGAN: Madam Mayor, Council members. Matthew Corrigan, homeowner in Fountain Hills. I actually support and commend Council member Kalivianakis for the two proposals, two options for the resolutions rather to impose a moratorium to cease the build out of 5G wireless. Also, I prefer version -- version two, but I won't go into that. I recently read an article in Epic Times by David Shopno, (ph.) dated April 29th, 2023, in quote, in part, "Researchers at Environment and Cancer Research Foundation ECFR in Sweden, in case studies published in the annals of clinical and medical casc reports, 5th generation 5G wireless technology is being rolled out worldwide, despite no previous research on possible negative effects on human health and the environment. As a result, exposure to a pulse modulated microwave radiation has increased dramatically on a worldwide basis. Microwave radiation are frequencies that in a range of 300 megahertz to 300 gigahertz within the radio frequency RF spectrum. In city environments, frequencies used for 5G are currently in a rate of 3.5 gigahertz span. Studies and the possible health effects from exposure to 5G frequencies were all but non-existent until recently." In a study -- a published report in October 2022, animals were exposed to the 5G frequency of 3.5 gigahertz for two hours a day, five days a week, for one month, the exposure caused oxidative stress, an increase of degenerated neurons in the hippocampus region of the brain, in addition to decreased erosion levels -- pardon me -- a hormone positively correlated with weight loss and healthy cognitive function. The researchers point out that 5G emits highly repetitive pulses of microwave radiation with radiation spikes that are exponentially greater than those of previous generations, including 4G. International investigations of exposed workers, including American military personnel, showed that microwave exposure at non thermal levels caused symptoms such as fatigue, drowsiness, dizziness, headache, sleep disorders, anxiety, and problems with attention and memory. There are significant problems with how health effects from RF radiation are weighed, according to James Lynn (ph.), a professor emeritus at the Department of Electrical and Page 35 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 36 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Chicago. In 2019, 258 EMS scientists from 58 countries appealed to the United Nations to impose a moratorium on the rollout of 5G until health effects could be properly assessed. We would be wise to do the same and consider this moratorium tonight. MENDENHALL: Next we have Dr. Brian Cutler. CUTLER: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to address you. My name is Brian Cutler. I live in Fountain Hills with my wife, Claire Sootman, who -- who has emailed you about her situation and she's not able to be here today. So I'm -- I'm speaking on -- on behalf of both of us both. We've lived here for about a year and a half and -- and I have to say that the -- the quality of life in Fountain Hills is outstanding compared to five other states I've lived in and Canada. So thank you for your service and -- and for the the great work that you and your predecessors have done. We began this meeting with the lovely invocation that reminded us of the diversity of Fountain Hills. That diversity includes people with disabilities. I'm sure that every person in this room knows at least one, probably multiple people with disabilities of all kinds. EMF is a disability. My wife and -- and others have extreme sensitivity to 5G to wireless, and they suffer from it. It's -- it's debilitating. Part of our role is -- is to protect the most vulnerable people in the community. I'm not at all suggesting that -- that we disconnect Fountain Hills from the rest of society. I am a university professor and administrator at a university that operates graduate programs remotely. I teach masters and doctoral students all over the country and in Europe. I'm a forensic psychologist. I -- I work in multiple states, consulting and testifying. I rely on the Internet, 5G, as much, if not more, than -- than many people. I'm just saying that we should build a smart community smartly. More is not always better. What we want our legacy to be is it that we-- we raised people's connectivity from four and a half to five bars or -- or that we took steps to protect the most vulnerable members of our community who -- many of whom are negatively affected by 56 and wireless. Many people are -- are suffering and don't know why they're suffering, and it may well be because of -- of 5G and wireless. So I -- I, obviously, I support the -- the moratorium and Page 36 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 37 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES and I urge you to also. And I thank you for listening. MENDENHALL: Next, we have Ted Blank. BLANK: Good evening, Mayor, Council. Thank you. Ted Blank. In the proposed resolution, there is cited Court of Appeals ruling in the District of Columbia and -- and 1 wanted to point out that in the resolution, there were two statements, one of which refers to the risk of cancer, and the other one refers to the Federal Communications Commission not conducting Tong -term safety testing. I've always urged the Council to follow the science wherever it goes. And -- and I'm not a scientist, but I'm a person who thinks scientifically as much as I can. Regarding the increased risk of cancer, the ruling cited states that in spite of a negative ruling regarding some sort of investigations on -- on other issues related to like non thermal issues, they did find that the Commission offered an adequate explanation for its determination. That exposure to RF radiation at levels below the Commission's current limits does not cause cancer. And so I would -- I would urge the Council to consider the proposal, absent a reference to cancer. The -- the concern about RF radiation causing cancer is one that's constantly brought up, but the ruling has stated very clearly that there is no evidence that RF radiation below the existing limited levels causes cancer. The other item on here is that the FCC has not conducted any long-term safety testing, but the FCC does rely upon long-term safety testing from the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. They're responsible for doing that testing. So it says in the same ruling, "The FDA is responsible for the collection and analysis of scientific information that may relate to the safety of cell phones and other electronic products. As we have stated publicly, the available scientific evidence to date does not support adverse health effects in humans due to the exposures at or under the current limits. And the FDA remains committed to protecting public health and continues its review of the many sources of scientific literature on the topic." So my comment is simply to ask the Council to consider the resolutions as -- as -- as submitted, but to be careful that -- that -- that -- that they -- that they remain intemally consistent. There are references in the documents referred to in this resolution that don't support paragraphs five and six of the resolution. So thank you for following the science in whatever your decision is. Page 37 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 38 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Next, we have Lori Troller. TROLLER: Hello, all, Mayor, Council, Rachel, Aaron. Lori Troller, resident 27 years. And I want to thank you all, especially Jerry, Brenda, and Rachel, and Aaron for your specific attention to the moratorium. And any -- actually everyone in the community that's taken the time to gather on this topic. There's two moratoriums, I guess, now three options on the agenda. 1 was assuming Brendan's was going to be updated, so I'm speaking to her second one that she put out. So although -- although the moratoriums look similar, there are some key differences and the first one attached to the agenda, which will be the one that Brenda is presenting, there, -- that would be my choice and some of the differences between the two. There's a different end date. She's got an end date for January, which protects from a gap that we might experience between the holidays and the new year. It defines the ordinances to be updated instead of just referring to an ordinance. It clarifies the Telecom products covered by the ordinance, so it's more more specific. It provides an explanation of the explanation of the protections that we want to include in the ordinance. And finally, a small but important verbiage change in a simple phrase. So I yield back any of my time for questions. It was a quick one, wasn't it? Okay. Thank you. MENDENHALL: Next, we have Dina Galassini. GALASSINI: My name is Dina Galassini. I'm a resident of 20 years in Fountain Hills. Regarding wireless equipment, it's crucial that the town has strict ordinances in place. The so-called energy cloud will develop at different paces depending on the town's priorities. Per the energy cloud handout I gave you, this wireless network will have profound impacts on our town and businesses, and it raises critical strategic questions. However, it doesn't state the profound impacts it will have on our health. It does reveal massive profits for others, but not the towns. More on a global level. The profits do come from our data, privacy, and health as it deteriorates. We don't want this unsightly transformation of Fountain Hills like the lollipop antennas that are up, for example, the energy cloud categorizes four major energy shifts as clean, intelligent, mobile, and distributed energy. This really means total control of our data distributed globally, all wircicssly, our data instantly sent to China, or perhaps the European Union because they are the wireless experts, not us. The energy clouds transformation starts with the regional Page 38 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 39 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES approach to policy and system design, but as it states in the handout, it should be applied globally. Then comes the neural grid, a vastly more powerful platform with global connectivity. It is the goal of the grid and supports the mature energy cloud by giving it a brain. The How We (ph.) hand out reveals that the wireless infrastructure is a security risk and is this -- and is the real energy hog here, not us. We are a Dark Sky community and have ordinances in place. For example, light trespassing. Light is visible frequency. Wireless frequencies are invisible, high- powered, and transmit across our property through our homes and into our bodies, which absorb them because our DNA, our fractal antenna, per Dr. David Martin, these frequencies are recognized by our brain as light. As our sleep deteriorates, so does our health. Permitting needs to be highly scrutinized for accuracy, address, location, the type of equipment, the power emitting from that equipment, and the electrical demand it takes to power that equipment needs to be known. I am trained 60 hours by Geo V ital, (ph.) which is education on radiation free living. May I address the town with just one more item regarding the power utilities on -- on just one more sentence. There's an Ohio Supreme Court case, Ohio Power Company versus Burns, a power lines are a public use meant they could -- they think they can take whatever land they want to on the power utilities. Well, on whatever terms they wanted, but with without having to prove the taking was actually necessary, they can't take that public utility. Thank you. MENDENHALL: Next we have April McCormick. MCCORMICK: Good evening. 1 just want to thank this Council for the bold, brave action of putting this on the agenda, for the verbiage that has been produced, for your ability to listen to the residents and respond. I am so eternally thankful and impressed. My mind is blown. The first speaker I'm utterly -- could hug him. Everything he said is actually posted online in a website called FountainHillSafeTech.com (ph.). About 2,500 residents have read every word of that site, and there's an option where you can enter your email address so that you can be updated and receive a newsletter and find out what happens tonight if you don't happen to be here. There are thousands of residents that arc very -- very -- very Page 39 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 40 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES concerned about this coming to Fountain Hills and what it's going to do to property values. Untested -- I mean, it's a -- it's a -- a freak show is really what it is. And 1 know we all know that federal law supersedes state law. Well, in October, I gave you ten pages of federal law where all of the district courts have ruled on this repeatedly, that you do have the right to protect us. And I think that's what you're doing tonight. And 1 am so grateful, humbly inspired by your actions. I cannot wait to see what you are able to do next collectively, and when anyone thinks of a leader, they think of somebody with fortitude, courage, and guts. You ran to protect and serve the people, not multibillion dollar corporations, not anybody else, but us. And that takes courage. And that's what I'm seeing tonight, and I just want to thank you so much. And residents, anyone watching them on TV or in the audience, FountainHillsafetech.com, will explain to you why this is so vitally important and who we can thank for protecting us tomorrow morning. Cheers. MENDENHALL: Okay. The next are just -- they're in your packet, and they are letters. We have one from Jeremy Crandall with CTIA, who is in opposition to the resolution. We have a -- a letter from AT&T, who is from Toni M. Broberg, who is in opposition to the moratorium. We have from Lisa Smith, who is for the moratorium. We have Jane Bell, who is for the moratorium. Alan Grosso, who is against the moratorium. And they've all written a little comments in -- in support or against their item. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Any comments or questions from Council, Councilmen? MENDENHALL: We, actually, Mayor, we had one more, Ed Stizza, would like to speak on this. STIZZA: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Town Council, and staff. I have a very big question, I know that everybody's going to vote on this, but I would love to see if you're going to vote on it with the understanding that you're going to look at all options legally for another attorney. So I know that you have hired one. I've heard a few things and they didn't sound good. So it sounds like this particular attorney actually works for the telecom industry. So it would be nice to actually prove that he does not. So before you go ahead and hire them. So everything else has been said, pretty much, on the safety aspects and you'rc going to continue to hear a bigger audience talk about the safety Page 40 or 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 41 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES aspects on 5G, as more and more people understand what it really is. And hopefully you're going to do everything to protect this town, not just on the safety level, but on an aesthetic level. And because we -- we are losing the aesthetic. I constantly say the same thing. So please do everything you can to absolutely protect not only the residents, but the aesthetic of this town, please. Thank you. ARNSON: Mayor, 1 have to respond to that. Mayor and Council, the individual that we, at the direction of the Town Council, retained to present on June 6, who is going to come here on June 6th, has done work for numerous Arizona municipalities, currently does work for the town of Payson. My firms worked with them for years. He doesn't work for the telecom industry. I don't know where that information is coming from. I don't know why that information is being put out to the public now. It's not true. I want to make sure that the Council is aware and understands that the town attomey's office does its due diligence when it retains experts, and aside from that, I brought that to the Town Council for discussion and executive session, and we received direction about what to do. I want to make sure that the Council understands that when we do something in the town attorney's office, that we don't take it lightly and that we don't -- and that we do, indeed, have the town of Fountain Hills interests at heart. I've genuinely -- that's all I have to say. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thank -- thank you, Blue. Yeah, 1 guess since I'm the one who put this on the agenda and I'm the one who wrote the moratorium resolution, I -- I would like to address the Council and the public tonight. When it does come to -- to which one I'd like to follow tonight, I would like to do the amended version that I sent to Council and staff earlier today. Aaron, you -- you expressed some reservations about the original draft, said that you found it somewhat confusing. And so I wanted to clear it up and I -- I put the specific verses chapters to -- to kind of make it bulletproof. So you know exactly where I was going and I won't bore the people tonight with that. But this is a pretty tight version right now that I that I presented to Council and to you, Aaron. This was first brought to our attention, you know, sometime a couple of months ago, I think and I -- I think I might be representative of a lot of the people up here that thought that well, maybe this wasn't that big of an issue that it's being handled Page 41 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 42 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES internationally and nationally and so I'm not sure if I took it seriously enough. Upon doing my research, looking at articles like the gentleman mentioned tonight the -- the doctor that had the article on the Epic Times that actually Councilman Friedel had sent out to Council tonight, when I read letters and testimonial like our first speaker tonight about his sick wife, and then when I did just do Google checks about -- I thought that we're just going to be alone in this thing. Just Fountain Hills against the world. And I realize this has gone worldwide. There's -- there's a lot of questioning right now of this 5G technology. Anecdotally, is this why we're all so crazy when we're driving in our cars and at the grocery store? Anecdotally. that's not evidence. I -- I just want to say this is not about having 5G service. Okay. We get that from the micro towers. These arc small cell wireless units that would be able to be placed on your right of way, which we talked about earlier, on your property without permission by you. They have safety concerns, which we discussed, especially for vulnerable people with neurological conditions. Until further information is known, this moratorium is necessary to give us breathing space so we can take, oh I'm sure what is a competent attorney by our town attorney, we hired the outside counsel, which is an extraordinary measure. To just make sure we have all of our ducks in a row. So we we did what you wanted us to do. We hired the outside attorney. We have presented to him the evidence we have, and that we wanted the tightest ordinance that we can come up with that's going to comply with state and federal laws. And so I think that's a -- a great deal of good faith on your Town Council, to try to address these issues for you. We've taken it seriously. We've heard. We did get letters, and 1 was so impressed. From AT&T with Toni Broberg, Desert States Principal President, President AT&T External Affairs. We also got a letter from the trade association for wireless communications industry. From one little town council person that puts a moratorium on there, boy we seem to raise a lot of attention. Instead of them quoting some laws to us that I didn't have time to read I wish they just would have sent us a peer reviewed study to say that this is safe technology. That would -- that would have cured it right there. As we've talked about before, the Federal Appeals Court heard the case, environmental case, Health Trust v. Federal Communications Commission. It is very important that the Swiss Re, which is the Page 42 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 43 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES second largest rcinsurancc company in the world, called 5G a high impact liability risk due to health concerns in its 2019 SONAR Emerging Risk Report, and they will not compensate for losses from personal liability related to RF exposure. That means that this is so untested, that we're not going to make many insurance -- if somebody gets injured with this radio frequency with this technology, that means a lot to me. If they're not willing to provide insurance, saying that this is safe technology, then we have to look into it and I think that's what we're doing. If there are provable data that no there was no harm in 5G service, then why won't the second largest reinsurance company not cover the losses? So you're going to have a 5G phone service, you're still going to have Internet without this intrusion. So let's take a pause, fully understand the consequences, finish writing the ordinance, and go from there. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. GRZYBOWSKI: Thank you, Mayor. Before I get into the research that I've got to talk about today, I -- I just want to make it clear that if we put a moratorium into place, and I'm under the impression that we don't need a resolution to put a moratorium into place one, and two, if we do put some sort of moratorium into place, that it's still -- whatever the legal term is, by right within whatever the number of days is, 20 days, they can still go out and put it up. So all right, we lose control over giving them a yes or no. If we have a moratorium, they automatically get to put it up and in however many days. What else do we lose control over? Do we lose control over type, height, location, any of that other stuff that would be important to us? ARNSON: Mayor, Councilwoman, the answer to your first question is yes, and the answer to the second question is also yes. And with the explanation as follows, we -- with respect to federal and state shot clocks, there are federal and state laws that govern small cell infrastructure, particularly in the right of way. A moratorium does not pause the running of the shot clock. And pursuant to federal and state law, a failure by the town or any local government to respond to an application, either to deny it or to approve it, is deemed approved. That's what the language is. It is deemed approved. So whatever is in the application is what is deemed approved. Whether action is taken by staff or not, whether there is a moratorium or not. Did that answer the question? Page 43 0187 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 44 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES GRZYBOWSKI: So literally, if we put them a moratorium into place and we don't review these things as they come through, they get an approval to pretty much do whatever they? Is that -- ARNSON: The application is deemed approved as submitted. Clerks Note: Mayor Dickey left the dais at 7:35 p.m. and returned at 7:37 p.m. & Councilmember Toth left the dais at 7:37 p.m. and returned at 7:39 p.m. GRZYBOW SKI: -- the non -legal version? Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you, that -- that answered my question. Again, 1 don't understand why we're -- we're even having a conversation about a resolution, but both, I guess I should say at this point, all three of the resolutions that we have received copies of refer to peer reviewed studies, but we were not given supporting documentation to back up those statements. Last year, Council was sent links to websites that appeared to me to be self -published and without peer reviewed supporting studies. But all three of the resolutions refer to Swiss Re SONAR Report. SONAR stands for Systematic Observation of Notions Associated with Risk. According to their website, the SONAR tool is an internal crowdsourcing platform that collects input and feedback from underwriters, client managers, risk experts, and others from across the company. The emerging risk themes neither reflect the entire emerging risk landscape or of the RE/ insurance industry, nor that of Swiss Re. One quick comment about Swiss Re is the majority of their business is reinsurance and reinsurance works completely different than direct to consumer insurance. They get to kind of pick and choose a little bit more than than your direct to direct to consumer insurance. Back to SONAR. I do not see where the SONAR crowdsourced documents are used as underwriting or claims guidelines for Swiss Re. Their most recent crowd sourced document is SONAR 2022. In short, the SONAR 2022 report indicates that emerging risks arise from climate change. If we are going to use the SONAR 2019 report as a basis to create a resolution, then we should reevaluate our recently amended environmental plan to use the same crowdsource platform. From the research I've done, low band and mid band 5G networks operate at largely the same frequencies as existing networks. There's nothing different in terms of exposures, Page 44 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 45 of 87 MAY 3, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES according to Kenneth Foster, Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, whose research focuses on the health and safety aspects of electromagnetic fields interacting with human bodies. Millimeter wave frequencies should -- should prompt even less concern, according to New York University's Collins, because they can't penetrate surfaces such as walls, trees, or human skin. 56 cell towers have a limited capacity for emitting signals. And the signals that do get broadcast aren't nearly as powerful enough to burn you. The exposure of even a standard household light bulb is a million times more intense. Millimeter waves are so weak, in fact, that they're barely able to carry an actual signal to your phone. They operate over a line -of -sight range and lose their intensity exponentially as they get further from the broadcast tower. Every article or blog -- blog post that 1 have seen against 5G treats 5G as harmful microwave radiation. 5G uses millimeter wave technology that does not penetrate the skin and falls under the category of nonionizing electromagnetic waves. Our home appliance that we call a microwave has much higher energy and can penetrate the skin, which is why we use them to cook and why it has a door to protect you. Your home Wi-Fi also -- is also microwave and works on the same frequencies as 5G networks and has been for years. Due to lack of scientific research from peer reviewed studies, I cannot agree that 5G causes cancer or other illnesses and 1 will not support a moratorium. Thank you, Mayor. MCMAHON: She excused herself for a minute, so if we can continue or we can just take a five-minute break, whatever you guys want to do. You want to continue? ARNSON: Whatever you guys want to do. MCMAHON: Okay. Hannah, do you want to say anything? TOTH: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just want to ask Aaron more questions. For the moratorium, when we talk about the shot clock, we say that there's -- once there's an application, if we do not respond, it means it's a yes. If there's a moratorium, are they able to apply? ARNSON: Yes. TOTH: Okay. That was the main question. Thank you. MCMAHON: Okay. I did some research on this. I looked at a couple cases that involved regulation of 5G and 5G cell towers, etcetera. And at -- the FCC federal law Page 45 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 46 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES governs the telecommunications. And it specifically preempts local and state governments from -- from enacting any statutes or regulations that may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting telecommunication services. And it-- it's -- it's as simple as that. But it's also very, very complicated. So based on the FCC federal law, local municipalities like ours, cannot enact legally, resolutions or moratoriums written the way that this one is written, in my opinion. This is it -- on its face, the moratorium whereas -- whereas allegations, the resulting in dense deployment of antenna near residents, and schools, and hospitals, etcetera. It's my understanding that schools and churches have their own leases and telecommunications with the telecommunication providers, and that's private property that we can't regulate. I -- I look at this resolution and it's so broad, that it's -- it's just so broad asking to cease and desist, and build out so-called 5G wireless infrastructures and -- and utilities, etcetera that I -- I just don't think it can be enforced. And number one, I don't think that there's any legal -- legal basis behind it because we are specifically preempted from on -- de facto and materially and on its face, preventing or adversely affecting the -- the telecommunication services and part of me. I'm probably not speaking clearly, but we just can't prohibit this. I don't think it -- and it and it's not even going into the health concerns or anything like that, because all of us each have health concerns etcetera. But I've also read some of the research that Sharon did, and I concur with what she said. But this moratorium has no -- it just -- and Aaron, you can correct me if you want, but based on case law, the -- the moratorium would just not have any legal effect whatsoever. And it's not going to stop from applications from being processed. We have an obligation to process them. And in addition, it's my understanding that right now we have 5G and 5G small cell towers already built. They're already in our community. It's my understanding they're not being expanded. There's no applications right now to expand them. We've been living with these for years. They're required for communication in our town, so this -- this moratorium is not going to do away with them. It's -- it's and please answer my question, and I'll back up to that one. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Go ahead and answer to what she said. Page 46 or 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 47 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES ARNSON: Oh, sure. Mayor and Council, I mean, I --I -- I think I've pretty much stated it -- that -- what needs to be said and I want to make it clear as well for the Council. I -- I've nothing in my staff report or anything like that says anything about health effects. I don't know one way or the other. That's not what I'm telling you. What I'm telling you is what federal -- and what federal and state laws are in this area, so. And what they say is that we arc not able to prohibit or inhibit telecommunications in this space. And that's the end of it. If the Council chooses to adopt a moratorium, that's within your purview. I just want the Council to be aware of what legal effect it will, or more appropriately, will not have. MCMAHON: Right. And also, Brenda, you said that the letters from CTIA and AT&T did not address the -- the federal law, but in fact both of them did. They both said the same thing, that we can't -- we can't -- local and state government law cannot preempt telecommunication services or deployment of their facilities. In that respect, I just don't think that this moratorium is going to have any effect. I mean, health concerns aside, it's not going to -- it is in direct contravention of federal law that does govem telecommunication services. FRIEDEL: Okay. A couple of things that I think have stated that were wrong. First of all, schools do not have small cell towers. They have the big, tall, huge towers, first of all. Secondly, I don't believe, maybe I'm wrong, there are no small cell towers in this town yet that I -- that I'm aware of MCMAHON: 1 didn't say that. FRIEDEL. You did say that. You did say that. MCMAHON: 1 said that we already have the cell towers existing. FRIEDEL: We have cell towers, but we don't have any small cell towers in this town. MCMAHON: I don't know. Do we know that, Justin? KALIVIANAKIS: Oh, would that be me? Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I think I've been waiting. Just --just to clarify the record on a few things for the Vice Mayor, I -- I did say they sent us a lot of laws. 1 -- I just said they didn't send us any peer reviewed studies saying that -- that this -- this technology. Yeah. So I just want to clarify that I just said they didn't send the study saying that this was risk free, but they did send us law. Yeah, no doubt about that. Page 47 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 48 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES The other thing with the -- with you, Sharon is -- you, you mentioned about line of sight you -- you compared this to a light bulb or to a VCR. And I just wanted to point out that if you go into another room and there's a light in the other room, you can't see the Tight with the door closed. If you go into another room with your VCR remote, and you push the button, it won't go through the door. I mean, I think that's what you said -- GRZYBOWSKI: That's not what I said. KALIVIANAKIS: -- and -- with the VCR, maybe. And the thing is -- is there's a roof over here, there's no line of sight, but 1 did have to turn my phone off tonight because if somebody were to call me, 1'd go right -- right through this structure. And so these -- these waves, they do go through -- it's not line of sight, they -- they go through mortar, brick, trees, you mentioned, so I just want to clarify that. They -- they do -- it's not line of sight. And then the last thing I'd like to say, and again this is anecdotal, but there -- there were people from the telecommunications industry here with their trucks. We have pictures of them and they said they were scouting tower locations and I've got the picture, I think, Councilman Friedel, I think you do too. And so the fact that -- that they haven't done it, doesn't mean they're not doing it right now and that we -- we might have been the shot clock to set them in motion to scout on our own town. It's hard to say, but -- but they are here right now scouting out our town. TOTH: Thank you, Mayor. I just had a follow up from my earlier question. Obviously, we have a moratorium, they're still able to apply, are we not able to respond if we have a moratorium? If we deny it and say sorry, we put in a moratorium, doesn't that stop the shot clock? ARNSON: No, there -- there -- there is no stopping the shot clock. I -- I -- I want that to be very clear. There isn't -- like if you adopt a moratorium, it is like nominal. TOTH: Okay. ARNSON: There's -- it does not stop the stock shot clock from running specifically pursuant to the FCC's order and declaratory judgment. TOTH: So we are unable to respond if we have a moratorium and they apply, we cannot deny it? ARNSON: 1 guess it depends on what the moratorium says, right? If you tell staff don't Page 48 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 49 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES respond to these, then okay. If you tell staff to respond to them, that it doesn't have the purpose of that the moratorium was intended to have in the first place. TOTH: Okay. ARNSON: So I guess it depends on what you want to do. TOTH: Last question, do any of the versions of the moratorium that we have in front of us right now, do any of those allow for staff to deny a application because there's a moratorium? ARNSON: Oh, we have the authority to -- we have the authority to deny applications because they're incomplete or because they are otherwise inconsistent with our regulations for sure. We already have the authority to do that. Would any moratorium, whether that's been presented here or that anyone could conjure up, give staff the authority to deny based on the fact that there's a moratorium? I mean, staff could deny it, what the carrier would come back and say is, you can't do that, right? Because they can't -- TOTH: Okay. Understood. Thank you. ARNSON: -- solely based on the -- solely based on the moratorium. TOTH: Solely? Okay. ARNSON: Yep. MCMAHON: So the moratorium or resolution, whatever you want to call it, it's sole purpose is to prevent telecommunication services from -- from happening for a specified period of time, right? ARNSON: I don't know. I guess that's the intention. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. And so that's in -- that's directly in contravention of federal law. We don't have the right to do that. So it's not going to have any force in effect, and that's what you're saying? FRIEDEL: I don't think that this moratorium is stopping telecommunications, the -- the -- the small cell towers have very little to do with your phone service. It's more security operations and that type of operation. It has nothing to do with your cell phone communications at all. And I think there's people in this room that could back that up, that it's a totally different animal. MAYOR DICKEY: Excuse me, I just want to say something about -- some of the Page 49 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 50 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES discussion that were having is showing some of the uncertainty that we have. And the reason we have uncertainty is because we haven't had the meeting yet for next, for the 6th, that is purposely what -- we met, we were directed to do was to get outside counsel, who was used to this item in the State of Arizona. So there's state law, there's federal law, and so again, the whole idea of what the -- the consequences are of it or not, I -- 1 — I think it's a premature discussion about that -- the health issues and such -- yes or no or somewhere in between. And in a couple of weeks, were going to hopefully be able to get some of these more solid answers. We do have -- we do have an ordinance, we do have some wiggle room as far as the way things look or how close things are to each other. We have no applications for this, we have nothing pending. And so that's -- so -- so to take away, again, I think kind of like you said, the -- the health -- health stuff about this, because that is obviously not going to be something that we all know right now. And I think we will be more educated when we do have the conversation. I'm just looking at it from a legal point of view. I'm not going to -- 1 don't want to vote for something that has absolutely no chance of being enacted and in fact, could possibly have somebody apply and then we can't even put our existing ordinance rules on there. I feel confident that were going to change our ordinances -- our ordinance. I'm sorry? I feel confident that after we get this information, that there will be examples of ordinance strengthening that we can do, but I don't know what that is right now and so I don't want to do this moratorium. I just want to have the meeting, figure out the good things that we can do legally, federally, state, all that good stuff. And that's why I don't want to support this right now. Councilman? KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. And then I'd like to just make a very quick statement then I'd like to make a motion, if you don't mind. My statement is -- with my intention of putting this moratorium on our books, this resolution, is at a bare minimum, it will have a deterrent effect to people that are going to come here to build, to build out these devices. That's established. There's no doubt about that. I know this -- this argument of is it constitutional? Is it legal? Is there preemption? Is there -- is there the Page 50 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 51 of 87 MAY T, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES federal law? Is there state laws? The courts are packed, the appellate courts, and the Supreme Court, with people that disagree on the laws. I mean, he's shaking his head over there, that's what the whole law business is all about. It's practicing there -- there's no nothing set in stone this -- this -- this could be the model ordinance that they use for the universe for the next 20 years. And so is there a chance we got it right? Yes. Is there a good chance that they're going to say, well, this is little community of Fountain Hills wrote this moratorium, maybe we should wait for them to get their ordinance done and then we can see how we can work with them -- with the new ordinance to place this -- this technology in Fountain Hills. And that's actually what my -- my hope was; to discourage them from coming here until we can get an ordinance with teeth. MAYOR DICKEY: Can I ask one question that — KALIVIANAKIS: And I'd like to make a motion -- MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Because I think we -- I don't know. She's showing me -- I think that we have cards, but I do want to ask a question because Brenda, when we -- you were talking about private -- or putting them on people's properties. That's not an easement, though, a right-of-way is not owned -- the right -of -way is owned by the town. Right? KALIVIANAKIS: Um -hum. MAYOR DICKEY: So that's what we have to -- we're forced to allow, right? ARNSON: Right. Under state law, the small cell infrastructure and the right of way is what's it's -- it's different from an casement on private property. It's -- it's -- its the town's right of way. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Ijust wanted to -- ARNSON: It's the town's right away. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thank you. MCMAHON: And also, for clarification purposes, it's not just case law that is applicable, it's the -- the United States code under 253 that is the law. And it is currently the law. It doesn't -- it preempts anything that we do, so therefore it -- it -- it's not going to have any force in effect with the moratorium. It just isn't, I mean, I appreciate what your intent is, et cetera, but it's not going to stop telecommunication services and providers in Fountain Hills. Page 51 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 52 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MAYOR DICKEY: I'm sorry, Vice Mayor. Are the speaker cards new? MENDENHALL: No, they're not. They want to know if you would entertain them coming back up. MAYOR DICKEY: I don't think were going to do that because we have our new set of rules now and so we're going to learn and stick with them. So Brenda, would you like to do it? KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. I'd just like to make a motion to -- to adopt the amended Brenda Kalivianakis version of the -- the -- the 56 ordinance or a resolution. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. So we have a motion for something that is not in our packet, correct? So I just want to make -- KALIVIANAKIS: It was sent to you. MAYOR DICKEY: Right, I mean we have it, but as far as the folks. KALIVIANAKIS: Yes. MAYOR DICKEY: It's not something you can literally see, but you will? KALIVIANAKIS: Yes. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. KALIVIANAKIS: But it's -- trust me, it was better than the original. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. We have a motion and a second on that resolution, which well, you know which one we mean. Okay. Can we have a roll call, please? MENDENHALL: Council Member Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicom? SKILLICORN: Y MENDENHALL. TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: GRZYBOWSKI: MENDENHALL: cs. Council Member Toth? Council Member Grzybowski? No. Vice Mayor McMahon? Page 52 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 53 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MCMAHON: Nay. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: No. Thank you all, appreciate it. Good conversation and more to come. Our next item is the -- is the budget? Did you want to take a break or can we take -- well, we'll take five. How's that? Thanks. CLERKS NOTE: Council recessed at 7:53 p.m. and reconvened at 8:05 p.m. MAYOR DICKEY: We're all back. I think we all tried to escape, but we had to come back. So our next item, we're going to be looking at the budget. And David, it's all yours. POCK: Thank you, Mayor, Council. Tonight's fiscal year '24 tentative budget for the town as well. This is -- should not be anything new, since we've talked about it at the Council retreat. We had a CIP work session, so that would be part of this, kind of a review where we are now. Also, the budget work session is in April so with that, we will go over a couple of slides just to give you an idea where we are so far this year. These arc total TPT collections across all funds. So you can see, overall we've collected S 15.5 million. The 9 month budget is 12.7. So we've exceeded that -- so we are receiving more than what we had planned. This next one, the construction, is a little surprising it -- it was -- B (ph.) actually came into my office and said, I think there might be something wrong. But we looked into it, and we actually had four speculative builders that reported their income in March for February. So we had four sales of spec homes, which increased our collections quite a bit so well take it. As far as utilities, communications, that one's pretty, it's right on target, 1.2 million, a 113 percent of budget. Of course, our wholesale retail is right on target as well, same with real estate, restaurant and bars, and services are also what -- doing quite well compared to what we expected or what I expected for the year. Overall, 89 percent of our total TPT revenue has been collected within the first nine months. So we still have three more months to go. This month is looking really well. So we should end up in good shape at the end of the year. As far as our state shared revenues, between these two revenue sources, that basically accounts for over 90 percent Page 53 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 54 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES of our general fund revenues. But everything is pretty much on target. We do have some -- a little to be desired as far as our revenues go. That could be any number of things. Could be the cost of gas could be more electric vehicles on the road, could be more telecommuting. But it looks like that might be the new trend for a while. So that takes care of the revenue so far. Are there any questions on those first two, any clarification? Okay. So since you saw the proposed budget at the -- at the budget work session on the 1 lth, these were the major changes that are made or that were made to the proposed budget to where we are tonight. So after we got all of our Auditor General schedules, budget schedules done, we just didn't have the exclusions that we've had for the last couple of years. So we actually had to reduce our -- our overall budget by $4.4 million. So what you saw in the proposed budget of 47.5 is actually now 43.1. Those reductions had to be made out of the Capital Projects Fund. Those projects aren't going away, they're just being delayed at this point, and they can be revisited at a later time by Council. As long as our revenues are coming in next year like they are this year, we can move some of our contingency and move forward with those projects at a later date. The tentative budget also has the seven percent cola, which we discussed at the work session. So just to go into the expenditure limitation a little bit more, that top line figure, the 34.4. million, actually comes from the Department of Revenue and then our tentative budget number there, the 43.1, less those exclusions, so grants, all of our health money is excluded. Any payments that we make to the state, insurance recoveries, or investment interest, and then our carryover of (indiscernible) funds from last year is also excluded. So that brings our expenditure subject to the limit, down to 34.3 or $31,000 less than the limit. Any questions on that? It's kind of -- yeah, it's a little -- little crazy. It's been around since 1980s. Basically just meant to to keep local governments, counties, and the state from -- well, not the state, just they -- they -- they wouldn't do that to themselves. The counties and local governments from expending, increasing their expenditures. MAYOR DICKEY: Is it formula driven? Page 54 087 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 55 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES POCK: It is. It's basically, based on the 1980 level at the time, and then adjusted for inflation and population. All right. So we'll go into the general fund. Just a quick look at past experience in the general fund, as you can see, revenues on the left, expenditures on the right, budgeted numbers in blue, actuals in orange. You can see on the revenue side, we consistently beat our budgeted revenues. That's a good thing that's -- goes towards our conservative budgeting as far as revenues go. On the right side, you can see it's the exact opposite. We're consistently less than our budget. If you take the difference between that orange bar on the right against the orange bars on the left, that's the difference. That's what goes towards fund balance, ensures our our reserves, takes care of our funding transfers, and also the CIP fund. All right. So then as far as special considerations for the general fund, were required to adopt a balanced budget. Budget process begins by forecasting the revenues. Our revenues for next year, 25.6 million. Our expenditures minus contingency, so not counting for contingency, just what's included in the budget, is 22.6. That's a difference of $3 million. Balanced budget is not achieved with that, right? So there's really only two options. We can reduce the revenues or we can increase our expenditures. If we reduce our revenues, then that doesn't give us the budget if we actually receive more revenues, right? If we increase the expenditures using contingency, then we would have that budget available if we need it, which is what we do. So that's where the the 3 million in contingency comes from. Any questions on that? MAYOR DICKEY: Could you please just clarify that a little bit more in plain English? POCK: Sure. All right. So since we start with revenues and our projections there, that's the number, right? If our expenditures, if we don't have our regular expenses like payroll, maintenance contracts, all that sort of thing, that meets or exceeds that number, which we wouldn't be able to exceed, then we have to make up that gap. We have to plug it. And that's with contingency. So as long as we receive the revenues like we expect, then we're actually -- we know we're going to spend less. Because our -- our base budget or all of our operating expenditures are lower anyway. But then it also gives us additional budget in case flood or you know something unexpected type thing happens. Or in this case, this next year, it would probably be moved to the capital project fund to -- to do the projects Page 55 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 56 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES that we're doing. Okay. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. You probably heard me coughing and choking for a moment here, but I know I wouldn't insist that-- that 3 million, because it's not. Now we have figured it out. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Twice. So I'm coughing. I'm choking over here. I want that $3 million contingency to go towards roads, not -- well there's some capital stuff and well talk about that later. But I want everyone remember the roads. POCK: The reason why, excuse me, Mayor, Council Member, the reason why the -- the reduction was taken out of capital projects is specifically for that reason. We didn't want to touch the streets fund and what's budgeted there, which is already $1 million more than what we budgeted for this year. Okay. So then as far as the revenues go for general fund, you can sec those -- those first two items are 94 percent of our total revenues expected for next year in the general fund. One thing I would say, included in that intergovernmental revenue, is the state shared income tax, which we have about S I million more than what we would have normally expected in that line item and that's because of the income tax deal that was done last year. Lowering the income tax, they actually increased the percentage that towns and cities get for the first two years. Yes. So you can see 25.6 on the revenues again. And then as far as the expenditures, that same amount. I think -- are there any questions on this? I just did these by function so that we didn't have to go through each specific department. Okay. As far as supplements for the general fund, again, you'd seen all these broken down in the -- at the work session, but personnel, the $2.1 million, that's a big number, one number that we don't normally see that big. However, we do have a fire department that's coming on with 30 some personnel, so that's a big chunk of that. We also have one- time expenditures of 53,000. That's a little less than what you saw at the work session. Nobody's going to be dancing on a new dance floor next year. So -- so that did come out. Ongoing personnel you could or non -personnel, I'm sorry, you can see the total cost minus offsets. equaling 670 or 667,000. So the total of those supplements, 2.8 million, those are all included in the numbers that you saw earlier, and you can see online. There has been an additional request from the Community Center that didn't make the Page 56 or 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 57 or 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES actual supplement process. The request is to either convert the part time position to a full time position, adding about 14 and a half hours a week. That would add 32.8 or $32,800 over the year. Or to add additional hours for another part time person at 11 and a half hours per week, at a cost of 12,800. That one, we're going to need a little bit of direction from Council. MAYOR DICKEY: 1 think the full time, somebody that's current going full time, seems like a better option for several reasons. If you guys want to chime in here, please do, but yes. KALIVIANAKIS: I'd just like to -- for clarification. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't see your light. Okay. Yeah. GOODWIN: I'm happy to offer a little more insight on this. There's a discussion about, again, taking a part-time position and moving it to full time. There's pros and cons with both scenarios. The -- we do currently have a part-time person who would be interested in moving into a full-time. It does give some consistency for our evenings and weekends. So that -- there's, again, a bought in person, there's consistency throughout the evenings, whether that's to deal with our public or whether it's to make sure that our building is maintained and -- and managed day-to-day operationally. Again, from the part-time side, obviously, it's less of an investment. However, we all know part-time staff arc much harder to find and keep. We have a -- we have a turnover issue with our part-time staffing at this point in time too. So there's pros and cons on both sides, but the -- the staff request is preferred for the full-time situation. However, we wanted to make sure you had both options. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor and yeah, just so -- so the math -- math adds up. So we currently have a part-time position. I guess it pays 12/8 per year and -- and then if we convert that getting 14.5 more hours, then that'd be 32, which I guess would be the additional 14.5 hours. And then benefits, is that how we get to 32? Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: I'm for the -- I'm for the -- I'm for the person turning into full time. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah, me too. POCK: You're right. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Now we will talk about the streets fund. You can see the historical here. The revenues on this -- in this fund are fairly consistent as far as what we -- budget is, what we receive. Page 57 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 58 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES You'll see there's not a lot of extra revenues there. That's basically HERE and VLT funding as far as that goes. And then the 2/10 of a percent of TPT is also included in there. You'll also notice that in fiscal year 22, there was quite a bit of light blue on the top of that column. That was unspent budget. Anything that's unspent in the prior year, rolls over and creates a higher fund balance for the next year. If there's any questions on that, we'll just -- MAYOR DICKEY: I'll wait for the next slide. Yeah, the next slide is also about streets, right? Yep. POCK: Yes. Yes. So this is next year's revenue. As you can sce it -- it's dipped a little bit. That was because I did reduce the TPT forecast a little bit, not knowing what the economy is going to be doing for the next 12 months. So then, as far as the expenditures, you can see, like 1 said, that the pavement maintenance portion, that top line actually increased 1.1 million from this current year. Everything else pretty much remained the same. I did remove -- remove some of the contingency, but that was one of the reductions. MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah, 1 wanted to this to go to what Allen was saying also. But -- so first of all, May I I th is the deadline to ask for -- if we were going to ask for bond, which I know was something we we're wondering if we were going to get that kind of a recommendation. Part of why we have money rolling over has to do with the actual streets stat. I -- I keep saying, physically or logistically, you just can't spend a certain -- that much more than this. So we've got 7 million. We -- were -- were -- we're already up to 5.3 million here. So we have the funding available that can physically and logistically possibly be used. And Justin, you can nod and give me some encouragement here, but. So what I -- I just want to make it clear, 1 think the school district is doing some conversations now to make it clear that we will not be having any kind of a -- a bond or anything on for November 24. And it also gives us the the time to -- to -- to get the report back from the firm. To get all the information from the committee, it will give us all a chance to discuss all the options then and -- and obviously, well have a funding conversation in the future. We're -- Page 58 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 59 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES because we're -- we're real good now and probably next year, but it -- at least it clarifies that for now, that we won't be doing that. Yes, sir. FRIEDEL. A couple months ago, I had made a suggestion that -- two suggestions actually -- dealing with streets and funding that, and getting a little extra cash in there. One was to the VLT tax right now. I think it goes 80 percent streets, 20 percent general fund. something like that. POCK: 70/30. FRIEDEL: Okay. So I was off a little. I don't think it would really hurt our budget a lot, maybe I'm wrong, to -- to commit 100 percent of that to streets. That was the -- that was the first suggestion. So if we could take a look at that somehow, and I don't know what -- what kind of an impact that would have. And -- and then the second one, when we do our excess sweep at the end of the year, instead of putting it all into capital improvement, maybe we look at a percentage going to streets and some of it going to capital. So that we -- we can somewhat bolster that streets fund and add a little bit more to getting more streets done. And it's less of a bond obligation because the bond rates right now arc just astronomical and it's just not a good time. But if we can somehow find a way to do it intemally and wait for these rates to adjust, because I think they will at some point for bonds, and maybe it is a year off, maybe that would get us through and get us some more roads done and something to considcr when we look at funding for streets in the future. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Yeah, we looked at that. Personally, the idea of the -- thc what we do with the -- with the leftovers, I think that's a conversation you can always have. And if it looks like the lining of the Fountain is still A okay and all these other things and -- and that doesn't have to have like a long term effect like every -- every year, we can decide something like that. I'm not so sure about the VLT thing because it's not that much money that would help the streets, but it's enough to maybe affect like when we talk about the the raises or anything like that. If it's 2 or 300 grand, that's not going to do much for streets, but it may end up being important in the general fund, so I'm not opposed to looking at it, Ijust don't think that -- that thc -- and the other reason why I'm -- that one is because we'd have to make a Page 59 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 60 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES policy change and then that would be the thing that -- that existed until we changed it again. So I -- I'm fine. Just personally, as far as trying to dedicate what's left over, and again to get back to the point of 5.3 million, we had that much -- about that much to spend this year and we could not get it out the door. So there's a lot of other things that go into being able to fix the streets. So just keeping that all in mind. I don't think it changes our -- what we have to do tonight, though, right? I mean, we're just going for the -- the bottom line. Okay. FRIEDEL: Yep. That's it. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Thanks. POCK: Yes, and I failed to mention that earlier. So the tentative budget sets the maximum amount of the budget for the entire year. Based on direction tonight, we can reduce that if there was a reason to, but it cannot go higher than -- than what is in the resolution and in those schedules. All right. So then to the Capital Projects Fund, we do have a few things to talk about here. Summary, you can see there's very little. This -- this graph does not depict any transfers into the Capital Projects Fund. This is strictly construction sales tax. I can't think of anything else that goes in there -- and interest. So -- so -- yeah, because it doesn't really do very well to put transfers in there. It kind of skews it just because it's moving from one account to another account. So I left those out. Anyhow. So these were the projects that staff agreed with, obviously, with the town manager, with Justin, and with Kevin and selected these projects that weren't -- it's not necessary that they start basically on July 1st. We can hold off probably until after the first quarter at least, and then sec how revenues are going, and then if we wanted to start adding these projects back in, we can do it at that time. There was one project on this list, the downtown streetscape, that there was quite a bit of discussion about at the work session. That was going to be revamped a little bit, reworked. And so Amanda's going to take you through that project because she has a whole separate presentation. AMANDA: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pock. So on March 14th, during the CIP Budget Workshop, one of the projects was the downtown streetscape improvements. We heard from Council, so well advance the slide. Page 60 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 61 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES So the original request was for 635,000. There was a consensus to reduce this and perhaps look at not just both roads. And so what was proposed was Parkview and Verde River. We had a turn around and bring it hack April I lth, and at that time, admitted to you we were still in a research phase based off of your feedback. We received additional discussion from Council looking, instead of the streets fund, the downtown fund, presenting different options. A couple of the Council members brought up the Avenue of the Fountains, specifically, and so again, the whole purpose of looking at Verde River and Parkview, was to begin to enhance the downtown, because that's also our downtown or in our general plan called the Town Center. And so option A, just based off of, again, some of the the conversation, is the streetscape improvements in the streets fund for S250,000 and then Avenue of Enhancements downtown fund, that's the funding source, 250,000. And so we reduced it by 135,000. Just again, we didn't receive direction on how much you wanted to -- to reduce it. And so if you look at that top image, thanks to our GIS analyst, we've -- we've placed those street poles lighting and the banners, just to get a better visual of what that could potentially look like. It's not an actual rendering, the spacings not right, so don't hold me to it. And then I had shared -- so Councilmember Skillicorn had brought up the Avenue of the Fountains and he had comments and I said it don't usually do this, but wanted to add that TAMA, The Avenue Merchant Association, had its fourth official meeting and one of their goals is to look at enhancing the Avenue and so that bottom is looking at our linear park and perhaps adding more public art to provide shading, benches, and just one, make it more attractive, create that sense of place, and not have it where people arc using the park as a dog park or just going and having a quick bite to eat and leaving, having them stay there and enjoy our downtown. Some of the conversations we received was about solar lighting. For this purpose, I don't want us to get that deep in, but how we were able to reduce some of those cost. So Council member Kalivianakis asked us to look at solar lighting. Here are some options that staff found. Last week there were some meetings with some folks to look to see if instead of those type of lightings, could they replicate a little bit of what we have because we want it to be consistent. Again, so people know it's -- it's the downtown. So that's still a work in progress, but just wanted to acknowledge that -- that we're hearing Page 61 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 62 or 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Council's direction. Option B, the downtown strcetscape. So it would be specifically downtown. With 500,000, I know we're just showing one option, that would -- we would be able to for 500,000, perhaps 400,000. We feel safer with 500 just in case, we would be able to complete improvements off of Verde River in Parkview. There is also the option, going back to the March conversation, where we reduce it to 250,000 and we look at one street. Again talking to our staff, public works, it would be Verde River. Just simply because it's shorter, so again, it's -- ifs cheaper. Option C is Avenue of the Enhancements. It would be specifically -- for Avenue of the Fountains, we would split that between the downtown and streets fund. I'll get to that in just a couple of slides. And so again, it's 500,000. Again, we could reduce it to 250 or -- or a little less. Anything below 100,000, I'm not sure what we could do at this time, just to be honest. Option D is do nothing at all. As your economic development director. I would hope we would get some direction on Options A, B, or C. We're recommending Option A so we can continue to enhance the Avenue, but also, this be an opportunity for staff and Council to do it. Some Councils and staff before us, were unable to do, but really start to enhance that downtown area, make an investment. There's businesses who've already invested in our town, but to also invest to hopefully attract other folks. Last week, I just met with some folks that are investors and arc looking at Parkview, but again it's -- it's -- it's hard to imagine and -- and they're questioning, should we make an investment and wanting to know what is the -- the staff and Council's vision. So back to the downtown fund, again, just to he transparent, 1 have requested in the fiscal year 24, S30,000, specifically for the downtown, for placemaking projects, and for advertising. And then we've placed the Avenue enhancements, if we do get direction, at 250, you'll see the downtown streetscape, the streets fund, that -- that's not there. The holiday lights is an ongoing expense of 53,000. There's restrooms. There, again, we've felt like we've received some solid direction at looking at restrooms. For fiscal year 24, the 35,000 would be purely for design. You'll see some notes below. The 150,000 would be to construct the restrooms so that would be in fiscal year 25. So our total budget right now in the downtown fund is over $500,000. The expense that were illustrating is over Page 62 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 63 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES 300,000. You take that away, there's over 200,000. And just best practice, yes, there's money there. But we don't propose wiping that clean, again, because we don't know what is ahead of us this fiscal year. And so with that Council, what we're looking for, again, high level. If there are any options that you're interested, as Mr. Pock mentioned, none of this would happen until January. But if you gave some direction on Options A through C, that gives us the ability because we've received your direction, to start meeting with -- with stakeholders, putting together a project timeline so we can rock'n'roll in January if the funding is there. Or again, if you decide this is not the year and you want to do absolutely nothing, thcn I respect that and we won't initiate any other conversations until the new fiscal year. And when I present the Community Economic Development strategy in the fall. So with that, Madam Mayor, Council, looking for a little direction on numbers and options. GRZYBOWSKI: Can you put up the slides again with the -- just the picture you -- you preferred A? Ijust want to see A again. Sorry didn't mean interrupt over there. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Councilman. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Director Jacobs. You know, it is interesting to see this. 1 think we want to do something there, but my concern is that this didn't go through the -- the formal budgeting process. Obviously, we did capital projects for weeks. This seems a little late to the game, and it's also a little underdeveloped. I don't think it's ready to kind of plug in and and go ahead. I would really prefer to to put this off until '25. FRIEDEL: 1 think one of the major stakeholders along the Avenue is going to be Bart Shea and that development that he does there. I'd like to get some input from him as to what he might be able to bring to the table as well. He's going to be a major benefactor to anything we do along that Avenue to filling his commercial spot and those apartments. So I think -- you mentioned stakeholders, I think that's a big one that we need to find out, hey, how much -- how much of the game is he in for? And I'd be willing to sit in on that. MAYOR DICKEY: Council member. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Thanks for the work you did in this and for the presentation you made the other day. Really appreciate it, meeting with TAMA. I'm Page 63 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 64 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES kind of leaning with -- with Allen. I -- I -- I see the merit in these -- in these programs. I'm -- I'm a little worried because with the -- the restrooms, I -- I think the 35 and then the $150,000 are going to be a down payment because from what I've researched, what I've done, to get like a four stall, two guy, two girl enclosed restroom, it might be up to $450,000, which is quite an investment in that. And I think we -- we need to get more input from -- from the people on that one. And then -- and then of course the Avenue improvements and the -- the bottom rendering there. As exciting as that looks, I think that the -- the money that we're going to put down now will kind of be an investment in design and flushing out other options. And so I think if we put this off, maybe for a year, it would give us a chance -- a good chance to flush out the numbers and to actually get the projects that you want to do. And then we can consider them. So I'd probably be D for now with a good job and 1 think you got a good vision for the Economic Development Director. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? GRZYBOWSKI: Thank you. A question about the restroom, $150,000 did seem kind of inexpensive to me as well. Was that based off of the model that we saw however long ago it was like this magic pod out in the middle of nowhere. Is -- is that where the 150 comes from? Is that what you're thinking? JACOBS: Madam Mayor, Council member Grzybowski, I'll have to defer that to our Town Engineer, Mr. Janover. MAYOR DICKEY: The magic pod. GRZYBOWSKI: The magic pod. JANOVER: Yes, yes, this was -- that was based on that pod. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. Because -- yeah, 150 didn't seem like -- how are you going to build a brick and mortar and put bathrooms in there? I kind of thought that. JANOVER: That is correct. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. So that answered that question. That being said, I understand that were looking at this and kind of feeling like we're just seeing it the first time, but were seeing it the first time because the last time we saw it, we said this is too much money. What can you bring to the table that's a little less expensive? So now they've bought something that's a little less expensive, because they still want to Page 64 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 65 of 87 MAY P, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES spend money on our downtown, which I -- I agree with that. l love the concept of speaking with Shea and his group. Should we put a placeholder on money so that we can see if we can get anything from Shea to help enhance it? And then we've got money in a placeholder? Is this stuff I'm making up as 1 go along? Is this even legal? ARNSON: Mayor and Council, you're entitled to set aside or earmark whatever you want for a particular purpose. I think Director Pock would probably prefer that we receive directions so that he can allocate money to other line items, so I'll defer to him on what he needs to see. POCK: Mayor and Council member, yes, this is on the delayed start list. So these funds aren't being held anywhere in the -- in the tentative budget, these would be presented again later in the year, if we had the contingency, the revenues to put towards it. Then that's when you could decide how much, where, when. GRZYBOWSKI: So putting peoples mind at ease, if we put -- pick an option. We are not committing to it, but we're putting the money out there so that if we like what Jerry and Shea's group will help contribute, then at that point? POCK: At that point, then you could say, yes, we're going to put money towards it. Right now, I think we just need direction so that Amanda can go and develop an idea based on your input so that she could bring that back to you in a more developed way in the future. JACOBS: And I'll just say, Madam Mayor, that is correct that I can spend the next eight months working further on this, talking to stakeholders. If the direction tonight is Option D, I have other things to do that are important. That will just continue to be the focus. MAYOR DICKEY: Hannah? Vice Mayor? MCMAHON: Thank you very much for putting this together. I agree with Sharron. I think we should move forward and give you some direction as far as developing the downtown area. All I've heard about from the stakeholders and business owners is that they believe and feel that if we enhance the downtown area, it's going to encourage growth, encourage more -- more business, et cetera. So I'm for the project, within reason, and I would like to set aside money, but David Pock said we couldn't. But I agree with Sharron. I really think that it's necessary to develop the downtown and not put it off for a year or two because it's going to take probably a year to get it moving and give you the Page 65 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 66 o/ 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES authority to work and do your magic, so to speak. So I'm for moving forward with A, B, or C on it. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Councilmcmber? TOTH: Okay. Got all my thoughts in a row and I'm ready. Having grown up in this town, hearing -- let's push it back a year -- let's push it back a couple years. Not just with this, but especially with this. With focusing on downtown, starts to give me like a nervous reaction, because it's so common in this town to hear, oh we'll do it later and we'll do it later -- we'll do it later. Parkview has looked the same since 1 was bom pretty much. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but not by much, right? What I'm trying to say here is, somebody -- if we really believe in our downtown, if we believe in our community's ability to become a thriving downtown, eventually somebody's got to pull the trigger on this. And this isn't the project every time, but it's been some iteration of it every year since the town was incorporated, I mean, somebody's got to do it. FRIEDEL: Correct me if I'm wrong, Rachel. Wasn't it just a few years ago we put money into the Avenue? GOODWIN: We did. So we -- the -- the town redeveloped the avenue as you know it today. That went on through 2014/2015. And so it's roughly ten years ago, not quite, where the major enhancements went on, the Fountains were redone, the turf, the walking pathway -- the meandering path, if you will -- so a number of enhancements happened during that time. And 1 think what -- to clarify some of the discussion tonight, what I think would help Amanda and -- and Pock as well, is the idea of, if we want to explore this more great, give us a price point that you're comfortable with and do you want to focus on the avenue, do you want to focus on Parkview, do you want to focus on both? Or do you want to focus on none? And I think that's -- if you can give sort of that indicator and a -- and a budget that you would feel somewhat comfortable to be working within, that gives some direction so that you can do some more research. Yes, it would have to come back. To be clear, nothing could happen until we came back, because it would be on the delayed list. So to that point, we would still give it the option of budgetarily what number would you feel comfortable with, so when we come back, Amanda doesn't come back with well, hey, I designed a $500,000 plan and everybody Page 66 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 67 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES says, yeah, we're more comfortable with 250. If she knew that ahead of time, she could work within that number. So that's, I think, where we're trying to get to. JACOBS: What she said. GOODWIN: But to answer the question, yes we redid the Avenue roughly ten years ago. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. FRIEDEL: I wasn't done. One quick one -- quick question. Amanda, in your vision, do you see them ripping up everything we just -- we did just a few years ago or adding to it? JACOBS: Mayor and Councilmember Friedel, adding to it. So an enhancement. So not ripping things up, because that would have been a waste of money. That -- that would not be -- KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Yeah. Just wanted to --just go back to this, the 30,000 foot view of -- we -- we killed a lot of projects. There's the kill list and then we have the delayed list and -- and I just think if we're going to have this conversation, we just have to have this on the delayed list and then we have to prioritize. We had a presentation tonight. We've had them in the past for the ones on the delay list, but I think Wayfinding signs, that's on the delayed list, would, I think, would be a much better expenditure of our funds because instead of concentrating everything in the downtown, we'd be putting up signs to get tourists to go to park here, downtown here. And so I think Wayfinding signs, to me, would take a higher priority than this. And so I think it's just -- we just have to keep in mind there's a lot of other projects on hold and it's our job to pick one through ten or whatever. SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Director Jacobs, based on, I think, more discussion happened here, than what you're saying. It almost sounds like, and -- and maybe I misinterpreted things, that some of this is about investment in the Avenue Fountains. My impression was, initially, this was talking about just Rio Verde and -- and Parkview. And I even think I -- 1 believe you mentioned those two streets and I want to make sure that this the scope is not expanding. We have what we want here and what I would suggest, and -- and I -- 1 think that the Councilwoman is -- is absolutely correct, that there are many priorities that we're delaying. I don't sec this kind of bumping up in front of some serious things that are being delayed. 1 would love to see a A -- A lighting plan. I'd like to know how many lights. I'd like to know how much they cost. I'd like to Page 67 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 68 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES know the lumens, like the wattage. 1 love to see that play on, but 1 still don't know if were going to be able to pack this into the second -- second -half of'24. That's why 1 mentioned '25, but it is something we'd like to see and 1 know we've talked about it and I think that's actually the consensus of this board -- was more, what can we do lighting wise. And we've heard lots of figures and most of them are quite a bit lower than the -- the S600,000, which was really talked about. So that's -- that's the point on that. And then if -- if Mayor will humor me for another bit here, I don't know if Director Pock is ready, because there were some specifics I wanted to talk about, but I don't know where you are in the presentation. If you've got more stuff you want to show, then 1 will hold off. JACOBS: And Mayor Dickey, Councilmember Skillicom, what I heard, and maybe I heard incorrectly, but April I I th, I know you had mentioned the Avenue. Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying. 1 know Mayor Dickey mentioned completing it or -- or finishing it, whatever that entails. And so it was, again, I was trying to listen, because there wasn't, I felt, clear direction. There was clear direction on reducing the cost and providing options. So just to make that point. GRZYROWSKI: Keeping in mind that ten years ish ago, we redid the Avenue. And were, obviously, looking to decrease the dollar value. That's -- that's obvious from the conversation here. I understand wanting to know lighting plan, how many lights, but this is big picture. We need to pick what it is we want to do and then the plan gets put together and they come back and present to us how many lights it would be, where they would be placed, all that kind of stuff. And I can assure you that the -- the lumens that the lights are -- are going to be approved by our Dark Sky folks or it would not even be something we would consider. Where I'm going with this massive thought, sorry about that, is, let's talk lighting. I think lighting is very important. We've had this conversation before. That right now, the only lighting is on the Avenue. We just did the avenue tcn years ish or so ago. It sounds like we don't want to redo it. Which is fine. I love the the plan that -- that Otis' came did for us, but I think lighting is very important. It makes it more inviting to want to go down Verde River and go down Parkview. So do -- can we say we -- we want to talk lighting and do we want to talk lighting just on Verde River? Or do we want to talk lighting on Page 68 of87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 69 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES both streets? 1 feel like we need to start there. JACBOS: And Madam Mayor, what I'm hearing. again, not -- not clear. I hear about three of you liking options A, B, or C, maybe not clear. And then some clear direction of Option D. Any more Option Ds or an Option A, B, C? MAYOR DICKEY: Hannah? TOTH: I mean, obviously, 1 like Option A, but I'm not winning that battle. So Option B was the one that would put some lighting on Verdi and Parkview, right? JACBOS: Correct. So we could do both streets, or just one at roughly 250,000. TOTH: Okay. What if we explore that Avenue? What if we explore that road of getting the lighting on Vcrde River and Parkview? Exploring how to connect that Town Center area? And really, keep in mind that plan and tell Otis Architecture to keep it in mind for maybe'25 or '26? Because 1 -- I would love to create a sense of place on the Avenue, but I can understand why that might not be something we can do this year. So 1 would suggest that maybe we just explore the lighting on Verdc River and Parkview. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilman? SKILLICORN: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think when I see B here, my blood pressure goes way up when I see a $500,000 price tag for lighting. So I want to make sure that that's clear. But also, Madam Mayor, I think you raised your hand for item D, and if my math is correct, that's -- that's the majority. So that sounds -- if that's correct, it sounds like direction. MAYOR DICKEY: I just want to say a couple things. I must be missing the boat on Parkview, because we don't have sidewalks and were trying to create a strollable, walkable, whatever you want to call it, scenario down there. The stores are far set back. There's no sidewalks. The types of businesses that are there, many of them would not be open at night, would not. So I get trying to attract, but I don't think, at this point, we're in the position to spend $250,000 or $500,000 on lights to potentially attract people to Parkview when we have vacancies on Avenue Fountain. When we said -- to me our discussion that day was, come up with something less expensive so that Parkview and Verde River feel included. So my brain, I'm like put some signagc up, put some signs up, more stores this way, follow mc. You go down to Denver, they've got these little round things, whatever, Cs for Colorado and then you're in that, whatever that district is. So the Page 69 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 70 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES the aim of that whole thing was for Parkview and for Verde River, and then we kind of started talking about Avenue of the Fountains. Of course, I'm still huffy because 1 still think we're not done with Avenue of the Fountains until we have a safe intersection and something that's been talked about for more than 10 years. So -- so that was removed. So whcn, Hannah when you say, if we say no to something. Yeah, we've been saying no to that for like 15 years. But regardless of that, I didn't think we were coming back with an idea for the Avenue, so much as for how to make Parkview feel part of downtown, which they are designated downtown or Town Center. Signage, banners, 1 don't know, the music, the Wi-Fi, maybe more shade or something on Avenue of the Fountains, but I don't think we should spend this money. I'd rather have a full-fledged restroom there, if we're going to do anything downtown. And figure out some other ways to make people want to go on Parkview and have something there for them to go to. So anyway, I think I'm the only one who thinks all this, so go ahead. KALIVIANAKIS: No, I — 1 concur with all of it. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Hannah? TOTH: This will be my last thing I say on this. When I was trying to open up the conversation about Option B, 1 did not say, Amanda, go spend half a mill on it. It was trying to open a conversation to get something done, rather than the Option D, that -- which is do nothing. And as for that previous project, that was a tiny, tiny piece of this plan, and the plan was for thriving downtown. The idea was to get where our downtown is lively and that tiny, tiny piece, that doesn't attract people. Doesn't really give us a better way to handle it. And statistically, it is debatable whether or not it was safer. I really don't think that is comparable whatsoever to a project that's trying to actually include our full Town Center, which we designate as Town Center, but we only treat one road like it's our downtown. Not that I don't love the Avenue, and I don't think we're done with it either. I agree with you, Mayor. I think that there could be improvements and that's why I was for Option A, but I can understand waiting on that. Just trying to open up a conversation so we don't sit here and become another Council that says let's do nothing. MAYOR DICKEY: What the -- sorry -- the -- the budgetary options then, would be, and this you won't like, would be like we don't have an idea right now, what we want to do. Page 70 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 71 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES But keeping something there so that something could be done is that what? MCMAHON: A placeholder. MAYOR DICKEY: I mean, we're just-- we just want to do this amount right now. This upper amount. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. MAYOR DICKEY: So I'm okay with doing that. KALIVIANAKIS: Yeah. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. And I think when -- when, Hannah, when you're speaking, before I was shaking my head and with what you're saying. And 1 think if we did go with D, but aspirationally, to do what Hannah said, let's -- let's think about in the future, if we're going to start this off, is get some lighting in there. And -- I'm sorry if that's not what you said. 1 thought that you said that maybe we should think about next year and that's -- like I said, I heard -- and if I misquoted, I'm sorry. But I guess, for me, it'd be like -- and not do anything this year, but then maybe next year, begin with the solar lighting and -- and just get some illumination in that area, which I think would help a great deal. TOTH: Really quickly, Mayor. Because I don't want my words taken out of context. I wanted to open up the conversation because it was a delayed project, and it would have to come back to us and it would come back to us this year. At no point did 1 say to do Option B next year. 1 was talking about for the downtown, for that Avenue, for that Option A, that I was looking at, maybe half of that goes to next year. I thought I was clear on that. KALIVIANAKIS: I'm sorry if I misquoted you, Hannah. JACOBS: Madam Mayor, I heard maybe you were okay with the placeholder at the end of your conversation? Yes, no? Otherwise, I feel like what I'm hearing is Option D. So I'm going to respect that. Mr. Pock has more slides for you, so go with Option D, and then just so you know, 1 will bring things back in our Community Economic Development Strategy, which we proposed, just related to the downtown. And then 1 think there is some type of support. So maybe over these next eight months, we can have some one-on-one conversations. So that when we bring something back again, there's clear direction in fiscal year '25. If I'm incorrect, let me know. MCMAHON: I don't get the consensus that it's D. I thought we were talking about Page 71 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 72 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES putting a placcholder out a couple S I00,000, so that you can do something and so that Gerry, as he suggested, and talking to Shea, because if you don't have that, then what are we doing talking to Shea if we don't have a placcholder? So that's what I think we should at least have a couple $100,000 for a placeholder. SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, I can -- I feel completely inappropriate adding a quarter million -dollar placeholder when we have a $60 million road deficit that that is -- is compounding. We need to address that, and I'm sorry, but this is another thing that's going to have to wait, and we'll go through the process here. But 1 have a very specific motion and 1 can't go along with placeholders, and 1 will vote no to any budget with placeholders. GOODWIN: I'm going to -- I'm going to try and wrap this -- put this together and I'm going to hand this back over to you. What I actually hear is Idea E which is none of the above. The idea that, yes, there is interest in exploring this. We don't know what exactly we want. We don't know exactly how much we want to spend. There's a lot of concerns about there, about what it should include, what it shouldn't, discomfort about identifying a number and holding it specific. Quickly. to be fair, this is a delayed project, which means you probably wouldn't hear much more about this until the November, December at the earliest. The reality is -- is that even if we come back with a great plan and you say that's awesome, go do it, we probably can't get it done at that capacity during the FY24 fiscal year. So if it makes more sense for Amanda to not necessarily do nothing, but to continue to the discussions, as she says, look into it. Maybe zero in on a few better -- on a few more details, a better idea of budget impact, so that when we come back and have our budget retreat in February, we can talk about real numbers, real project ideas. Not concepts. If that makes more sense, again, it doesn't necessarily mean do nothing, it means we're not ready to make that decision and we want to come back and explore it in more detail. Okay. Okay. Thanks. [LAUGHTER] POCK: All right, so back to this slide. Just to make one point, just to make sure there isn't any confusion later when we're doing motions, none of these projects, none of these funds are represented anywhere in the tentative budget. They're not placeholders, they're Page 72 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 73 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES not anywhere. They're on a slide showing you what came out of the proposed budget, so. Moving on. So as far as Capital Projects Fund as it stands in the tentative budget, there is 56.6 million budgeted in the Capital Projects Fund. You can see the breakdown on the left between public works and community services and then the breakdown on the right is the funding sources. The only portion that's coming out of existing Capital Project Fund fund balance is $2.8 million. 35,000, as you heard earlier, is for the downtown restroom project for design, 35,000, and then the special revenue $3.8 million, all grant funding, either flood, medot or MAG or somewhere else'? Not us. So I just want to make that very clear. There's not $6.7 million for something else. So onto the projects that are included in the tentative budget, again, everything that you've seen before. There was a slight change in the second Community Services Project P3036. That increased $35,700 from what you saw at the proposed budget. That is to pay for transportation of the shade structure at the American Legion to shade and net, their work to recover that, repaint, and then transport it back to Desert Vista Park. So that's the only change as far as that goes. Everything else arc the numbers that you saw at the work session. Any questions there? SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, Director Pock, to get there at $37,000 to transport the shade structure. POCK: Transport, recover, repaint, and transfer back. SKILLICORN: And what is the expected savings based on you just purchasing one? POCK: I -- 1 -- I can answer that. It's about $50,000. SKILLICORN: Okay. MAYOR DICKEY: To buy it? SKILLICORN: Yeah. And then, so can we go back to the delayed project slide? So this is one that 1 don't know if -- how much of what I'm going to say is actionable, but 1 think it's it's poignant. So 1 see a lot of things in here that will protect our infrastructure, things that would be fiscally conservative, yet something that really sets us up for the future. 1 see a lot of drainage improvements. I see some infrastructure repairs. I see a lot of these things that are being delayed, that are important. That may not be glamorous, but our -- when we -- when we ran for these offices, we talked a lot about needs and wants. And I see these are like, these aren't things that like, you want and you -- or we're going to -- Page 73 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 74 of 87 were going to put in the newspaper, like how we did such great work because we did this drainage improvement. No were not. But those drainage improvements mean that our infrastructure is not going to wash away. Someone's yard is not going to wash away, things like that. So I'm concerned that some of those were delayed, yet we have somewhat frivolous stuff that's still in the capital projects. So 1 did want to kind of go through, and I actually have some specifics that I wanted to lay out. And I'm just going to start from the top. Is first off, I do want to change the overall CAP number or -- that were going to make a motion on tonight and that's gonna be part of my motion. Coming from 43.1 and 1 wanted to move that down to 41.8, 41,807,000, and I'll talk about that later. Now. 1 actually have found all those cuts, except for the new 37,000, which was kind of popped on me. But 1 -- 1 -- 1 still think we can -- we can roll with that. First off, and actually this is going to be putting us in a better situation, I would really like to cap the general fund to what it is in the current year. So instead of going to 22.6, I'd like to go back down to 22.1, which was budgeted, even though we didn't get to that point. 1 think it's more appropriate to do a 22.1 v. 22.6. When I go back and think about supplements,' know that probably one of the big one and 1-- 1 want to be cautious about going to the part-time, the full-time because of the -- our health insurance benefits I assume is a difference there. I am concerned about that, but when you talk about the cost of living, the seven percent, which is extremely high, the private sector wouldn't do that, even though inflation is very high. What 1 think a better proposal would be is that -- that the rank and file can get get the COLA, but I don't think managers should. That dollar amount is probably hard to figure based on who's the manager or not right this moment. But I kind of have a guesstimate number in my head. Some areas that I also thought were appropriate is that -- the $50,000 for the MAC, homeless. I think 40 was the new LEAF, 10 was the MAG. Frankly, these are the policies that don't work in Seattle, and Portland, and Phoenix, all over the country. I say that we should get rid of that. Some of the other things that I see that can go to the capital projects, and the specifics for the like the Desert Vista, the outdoor exercise equipment, I -- 1 think it's inappropriate to do outdoor exercise improvement equipment when we're getting rid of drainage and other Page 74 al 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 75 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES things like that. So I would ask that. Other than that, the -- I think the shade structure is too good of a deal for us to get the -- so that, I would like to include the chain structure, but not the other $200,000 there. As I go into my budget book here. So we already cut out a few of these things, which I appreciate. I do want to completely cut out for this year the -- the streetscape improvements that was originally 635. 1 know we reduced that to 535. I just don't think we're ready for that. The Palisades traffic signal. I don't think that there was consensus to do that. So I'd like to cut that 34,900. And let's kind of go back here, I believe the -- reducing the COLA, reducing the MAG, reducing the Desert Vista, I came up with $684,000 in cuts. If we take out the strectscape, were at $1.2, $1.3 million, which would bring us to that -- that $41,807,000. So the motion I would like, and I don't know how -- if Aaron would like me to structure this to get this through, but I would like to do the the overall '24 budget number would be that 41,807. If I need to go through the the cuts, that's fine or -- ARNSON: Well, I'm not -- I'm not -- So first of all, yeah, if -- if you have a specific motion that includes -- that includes specifics, yes. SKILLICORN: Okay. ARNSON: The Mayor, I don't know if you're entertaining a motion right now, and 1 don't know if Director Pock is done, but yes. if they're going to be specific things that we want out of the budget, then we can either do that now or with the adoption of the final budget, because today we're setting tentative budget with just the CAP. So you might not need to go through line by line. SKILLICORN: Yeah, I just -- I think the guard rails are a good thing and I think the specific motion is helpful for staff. It's just like when I -- when I bowl, I'm not as good as Councilwoman here. I need the bumpers. And I think it's -- it's wise to give staff guardrails whenever possible. MAYOR DICKEY: So just to be clear, you wanted to lower the total amount, and then you want to individually go through what you did to get to that amount'? SKILLICORN: Yes. MAYOR DICKEY: And you want to do that now? Or just do the -- the amount? SKILLICORN: And then, well, it's ycah, 1 mean, it's -- it's -- it's not -- it's not that Page 75 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 76 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES detailed. I mean, there's just a few things here. MAYOR DICKEY: Well. Okay. I mean, if -- if you're going to go through each thing that you want, then were going to debate each one of those things. If you just want to go with the amount, then we'll figure out if every -- SKILLICORN: I -- I think it's appropriate to -- to have staff have direction. MCMAHON: Can I say something? MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. Vice mayor? MCMAHON: I disagree. I would like you to present and state which ones you don't want so that we can think about it, and look at it, and come back and have a more informed, intelligent decision about this. For example, the homeless money. I totally disagree with you about that. Homeless is -- is rampant in Phoenix and Fountain Hills is not exempt from that. This is like -- we don't have the facilities and the staff to address homelessness. And if we did, it would cost more than S40 or $50,000. So to give -- to donate $40,000 in New LEAF and $10,000 to MAG is -- given what we get back from that is exponentially -- you can't even put a dollar amount on that. We deal with MAG and we -- they have so many more stakeholders that they're dealing with, every single town and community donates money to this, from this. 1 do not think it's appropriate to exempt Fountain I fills from that. Because we don't have the huge homeless population that other towns does, it doesn't mean it's -- were not going to be affected by it. As far as New LEAF, New LEAF doesn't just address homeless. It addresses across the board, so many things that affect the communities. We have the men's shelter down there, that's what 11 miles from us? $40,000 alone helps that. They -- they address domestic abuse; they direct after school care. There are, if you look at their website and really look at all the the services that they provide, again $40,000 doesn't even come close to being able to provide for that. So I think it's negligent on our -- on our part to not donate a reasonable sum, that's $40 or $50,000 to those entities. As for the other things that you want to debate right now, I don't want to debate them right now. I really don't. I would like to be able to sit down and think about what you're proposing. Do the math myself and come back and then talk about them. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Councilwoman? GRZYBOWSKI SPEAKER: Councilman Skillicom, you might fall out of your chair, Page 76 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 77 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES but I actually agree with you. l realize I'm not going to win the battle on the downtown thing, but I'm right there with you, and here's why. With organizations like a New Leaf, I'm sure they're fantastic, but we are not a charity; we're a government. And to give $40 or $50,000 in charity, which is more than I make in a year, seems a little irresponsible. Furthermore, Phoenix has made it very clear that they're not equipped to deal with their homeless problem, so why would we -- why would we follow in their footsteps to try? Moving on from there, the capital projects that you mentioned, l would agree with you. I think that there are certain ones that we can make a priority in this year and if that's a number that were realistically able to get to, then I support your motion. MAYOR DICKEY: Rachael? GOODWIN: I'm just going to share that regardless of what number is adopted tonight, whether it's a reduced number, whether it's the number that's shared by Director Pock, if we adopt a reduced number, the -- we need to find those cuts too, because we can't change it later. So for instance, if we had -- adopt the number that's proposed and don't discuss how we got there, and come back at our final adoption and we decide -- what we -- we still want to leave these two things in or there's not consensus. We can't add them back in. So keep that in mind. I understand that it's late and I understand that that's not a popular answer, but understand, if we adopt a lower number, those cuts have to be found. You cannot add them back later. So Ijust want to make sure that everybody's aware of that. GRZYBOWSKI: I feel like we already went through each and every one of these projects and had various serious conversation about each one of them. Sure, a couple of them, we probably blew by a little faster than some of the others, so 1 am a little surprised that now all of a sudden we want to delete some of them. And that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor, if I could just respond to that last and -- and Council and I -- I appreciate that. That sounds like a surprise, but I also, I think, it's little surprise -- that there's -- some things are being delayed that, I think, that were important capital projects and to find out things that were not, as you know, we're not as -- were things that were more wants and needs were put off. 1 -- I -- 1 just thought that was a little inappropriate and frankly, if -- if we're going to be delaying needed things like Page 77 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 78 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES infrastructure improvements, I think it's appropriate to delay other things too. Arid I don't think we all, I mean, Councilman Toth mentioned a battle about this. This is a bad -- we -- we all want to have a prosperous downtown. We might differ a little tiny bit on how to get there, but we all want that. But we all have to figure out how to get there. But we also have to remember that we have a $50 or $60 million backlog in our streets. And what I saw here, was not roads first. I've got to -- 1 got to fight for roads. first and any money that's left over, we can apply that to streets and roads. And even if our roads department can't utilize that right away, that just puts off having to borrow later. And I would love to get ahead instead of being behind. Let's get ahead and then when we're ahead, then we're going to find ourselves in a prosperous situation where we can do all this neat and exciting things and -- and really have a -- a beautiful gem of a town, but we got to take care of the basics first. That's all. Go ahead. GRZYBOWSKI: Can you go back to the delayed slide? Didn't we go through all of these as well, and that's why they're on this slide? Because we discussed each of them and we decided whether it be as a group in its entirety or as a majority. We decided that these were -- were ones we didn't want to include in the budget, which is why they're not a part of the budget anymore. I just -- 1 feel like we were asked to give staff direction, which we did. Now all of a sudden, we're trying to redirection them when we had this conversation, very detailed, I feel like a month ago. But I really couldn't say specifically. So again, yes, I am surprised we've already made the decision to pull these. And now we want to pull more and maybe, possibly, put some of these back in. I'm just -- I just -- I feel very badly for staff. They've busted their asses for us, and now we're changing our mind and delaying what, legally, we have to do, which is approve a budget in a short amount of time. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you, Councilwoman. KALIVIANAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Mayor. Correct me if I'm wrong, Rachael, but didn't we approve the low flow drainage crossing improvement program and didn't we improve the town wide store water infrastructure rehabilitation? I'm going by memory, I think we approved those, but because we needed to reduce the cap by $3,000,000, those were subsequently deleted. Is that correct? GOODWIN: You are correct. So the -- but keep in mind, they are not deleted, they are Page 78 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 79 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES simply delayed. KALIVIANAKIS: Delayed, excuse me. GOODWIN: And that is -- delayed, exactly, and it is simply a result of, we have the money. We have the money and it's available. We could go do all of these projects, but the state says, you can only spend this much money. So while we have it, we can't spend it per the state. KALIVIANAKIS: But I'm trying to explain this juxtaposition between Sharron and Allen, because we actually did approve these, but they were subsequently cut and so it's lending confusion tonight. GOODWIN: Let me-- let me add one other piece of this that was mentioned, but I'm not sure that it got caught, was that these were the ones that were recommended per staff. So when we came together and said, hey, we got to find 2.8 million to delay. Actually, we started with what we sort of threw out there and said, what, it's better to ask the staff that arc implementing these projects. They know better than we do as to which ones can be managed, which ones could we get done with only six month's notice. If we come back in December and say, hey, things are looking good, go get these delayed ones going, which ones could we actually still get done in a year in the last back half of. So that's where Justin and Kevin came in and looked at these and said, if we're going to delay, these arc the ones that we would recommend for whatever reasons. And again, it had to do with ones we could live without, ones we could delay ones we thought we could still get done in a timely fashion, and 1'd be happy to let them chime in if they choose to. But these were recommended from the staff perspective for the delay. KALIVIANAKIS: Ijust got a real quick thing with the the the drainage in the infrastructure, I thought we had a lot of grant money tied up in that and that's why I think we voted for them because we were paying out pennies to getting millions of dollars worth of grants. WELDY: Madam Mayor, Council members, I -- I will just speak in regards to public works. What you see in front of you is difficult decisions made by calculated risks with a brief explanation. I'm not gonna go into comment on the downtown streetscapc. We've had enough conversation about that. In regards to the Golden Eagle Impoundment, and this is multiple years in design, we are right now up against one of our biggest turtles, Page 79 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 80 of 87 which is the Arizona Department of Water Resources and the Maricopa County Flood Control. That review process now that we're at a percent design is 18 to 24 months. There's simply nothing we can do to expedite that because of their policies and procedures. Again, we do not take it lightly. We do, however, know that we have made substantial improvements using the available funding to minimize and reduce the backflow of water into Golden Eagle, the town wide storm drain infrastructure. The inventory is primarily complete, however, having an engineering firm with expertise in how we should best preserve, in some cases, 50 plus year old metal pipes, has proven difficult because of the small dollar threshold. It's a lot of money to us, but to these multi -billion dollar companies, they -- what they want to do is show you a picture of what you could do for $150,000. No real direction. Again, I won't go through each one of them in regards to the low flow drainage, we believe that we have adequate time for planning and design on that in the latter part of next year and most likely into the following year. Because of the way the process works for those grants and the design to arrive there, the rest of the -- in regards to lighting and the lockers and the wayfinding, wayfinding is another challenging subject matter. Where we received a set of documents many, many years ago, we sent it out to bid and we got three different types of bids, but because there were no structural calculations and the materials called out were abnormal, we had to start that process all over. It's in design and were going to accomplish that goal. We do not believe we're going to be ready for installation again until the latter part of next. This year, the one at Saguaro and King Street, which is a back watering issue, water stands in that intersection after storm events, it does eventually drain, just not at the rate that we would like it to. Again, delayed, not cancelled, simply delayed, and that allows us more -- more time to focus on what we can accomplish and plan for these in the future. KALIVIANAKIS: And -- and just one other question then, would -- would these delays affect the grant money or would that grant money still be available? WELDY: Madam Mayor, Councilmembcr, the -- the grant will still be available. So this, Mayor, Council has made a commitment to that grant. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. WELDY: And we're not canceling that tonight. We're simply stating that we have that Page 80 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 81 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES option in the latter part of the year and we'll begin to prioritize these based on the available budget that we could spend and also grant opportunities. At any point in time, we may return back here and ask you to allow us to defer or delay something else to address one of the priorities where grants included. FRIEDEL• Allen, I -- I probably wouldn't disagree with some of what you said, but 1 want to get hack to the COLA increase. So are you saying that the managers shouldn't get anything? I'm not for that. Just so you know, I think we need to take care of our employees. We're working with a lean staff now and these managers direct our staff and they direct our town. I think that that's important. 1'd like you to reconsider that if -- if you have a number that you want to reach, I'm sure the staff can come up with the cuts necessary for -- for the -- for the other things. And we come up with that number. But I think that taking care of the staff that runs our town is really important, to me anyway, so I feel pretty strongly about that. So I want you to think about that and 1 wouldn't be for that -- part of it. ARNSON: Yeah. And I know that Manager Goodwin wants Kevin to -- to talk -- to talk about some of his projects, and I want to make sure that that doesn't get lost. Ijust wanted to give a little bit of— maybe some help in seeing where we can get this conversation moving forward. It seems like you have a couple of options of what you could do tonight. And then Kevin, I'll turn it over to you. The first would be to adopt the budget, as presented by staff, at the number that's directed by staff and subsequently went at adoption of the final budget, right, come back and start to whittle off items. You can do that and don't forget what manager Goodwin talked about, that whatever number we set tonight, if we have adopt a reduced number, it cannot be increased, legally, so it may behoove the Council to adopt a higher one tonight and come back and approve one at a lower rate. That's Option I. Option 2 is what Allen is suggesting, what Council member Skillicom is suggesting, and after Kevin finishes, my suggestion would be, if that's what we're going to do -- going to do tonight and go line by line, we need to get started and go through. Here's this project, do we want it? Yes or no? Here's this project, do we want it? Yes or no? Because if we don't start now, it's going to be tomorrow by the time -- by the time we say goodbye. SNIPES: Councilmembers and Mayor, just on the parks side of things, when we started Page 81 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 82 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES talking about deferring and moving back our -- our timeline, the sidewalk replacement, we've done several this year and we're doing them right here at the end of the year. So it's pretty easy to know that five or six months down the road, we can start that back up. So that was a real simple one to put in here as a deferred for later this year. The other one is for the Fountain Park improvements that we talked about around the splash pad area. We're not going to do that until we're done with the splash pad anyway, and so that made it easy to put that one on the list. So that's why those two are on the list. As far as our commitments to doing the -- the improvements in parks, the Desert Vista one was done as a two year program, and so we've designed and started the build for a two year program and relying on that money to be there. Having the shade be there, but not anything to put under it, around it, is just going to be a shade structure and for -- in the middle of nowhere. And so that makes that a difficult thing to take on as well, because it's going to look like we didn't know what we were doing when we put a shade structure out with nothing under it or a way to get to it. So 1 think that's something that I would encourage you to -- to think about when we do multiyear programs. We plan and design multiyear improvements. So just something to think about while you're doing it as well. SKILLICORN: there was a couple, Madam Mayor, those couple of questions that were made. 1 -- and I still I -- I start just looking through very quickly. Desert Vista, when 1 add in Centennial Pavilion, when 1 add in the -- the -- the traffic signal. I come up to $484,000. $484,000 pays for somebody's drainage products and things, and I -- I still look at infrastructure has to be a priority over -- one, to the COLA question, that -- that comes up, because nowhere in the private sector has anyone seen a -- a seven percent COLA. Nowhere could we entertain a different number, maybe. But part of that comes from, we were expecting to save a few dollars with the retirement of our town manager. When I -- when I look at salaries that -- that isn't the case. We're -- we're paying the old salary. So that's a dollar amount there. And -- and those things add up. I mean, so I'm going to make a motion to approve a cap at $41,807,000. MAYOR DICKEY: I don't think there's a second for that. Aaron, did you have something to say? Would someone like to move the amount that is in the agenda? 43.1, I think. Page 82 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 83 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MCMAHON: Make a motion for it, is that what you're saying? MCMAHON. Where is it? MCMAHON: Is it right here? Staff recommends adoption of resolution 2023/14, and 1 make a motion for that. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Is there a second? GRZYBOWSKI: Second. Roll call, please. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicom? SKILLICORN: No. MENDENHALL. Council Member Toth? TOTH: No MENDENHALL: Council Member Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. Thank you very much for all your work. I have a couple more items here. Thank you. I'm sorry. MCMAHON: One second. Thank you to the staff for taking time to explain the delayed projects, we appreciate it. MAYOR DICKEY: Next is our HVAC system cleaning purchasing agreement. WELDY: Madam Mayor, Councilmembers. Excellent discussion tonight in regards to the things that have been delayed or deferred. This subject matter of these chillers is one of those multiple years, the maintenance and or replacement or repair of these critical chillers to our infrastructure that not only address the -- the Town Hall, but the Page 83 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 84 of 87 MAY Z 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES Community Center, and the library. They're still functioning, but they need extensive work and repair. We are fortunate enough that the county went out for bid for this type of contract. This vendor has agreed to extend those terms to us. And has worked with facility staff over several months, doing extensive investigations and explaining the process and providing some estimates on not only what we need to do now, but what we're going to need to plan for in the future. What we're asking for tonight, is the approval of this contract, primarily for the cleaning of the chiller equipment and the towers and some additional work that was previously scheduled and delayed related to the HVAC system for the town hall campus buildings. If you have any questions related to that, I will do my best to answer them. MAYOR DICKEY: We didn't have any cards, do we? MENDENHALL: No Mayor, we don't have any more cards. MAYOR DICKEY: You'll make a motion? Oh, we do. I'm sorry. MENDENHALL: It was the budget. They were just in support of Amandas avenue enhancements -- you had them here. Nobody wanted to speak. It was just. KALIVIANAKIS: Okay. I'd like to move to approve the cooperative purchasing agreement C2023-073 with Camp Facility Services for HVAC system cleaning services. The amount of S66,000. MCMAHON: Second. MAYOR DICKEY: Roll call, please. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicom? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL: Council Mcmbcr Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Grzybowski? GRZYI3OWSKI: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. Page 84 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 85 of 87 MAY 2, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES MENDENHALL: Vice Mayor McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL: Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. I figured you were next. WELDY: Madam Mayor, Council members. This one is a little bit more challenging. When we come to the Merit Council and we ask for permission to apply for a grant, we use the best managing and practices available for estimates. For our capital projects, for grant funding in this particular case, we even added an escalation factor in there that honestly, I believed was too high and we would be above the the numbers for these two capital projects. When they came in, I was wrong and -- and 1 admit that I made a mistake when we put these two projects out to bid. And the numbers originally came in. I had to go back and check the quantities and make sure they didn't bid it twice. We've done all of that work to make sure that the numbers arc accurate and the plans are correct, and so tonight I'm back to ask you, literally, with my proverbial hat in hand, to allow us to spend some additional funding, which 75 percent of that funding will be reimbursed by the county and 25 percent from the town. Again, these two projects were deemed essential and critical and a priority by the mayor and Council. We have followed the instructions from Mayor and Council to the best of our ability. We're at 100 percent. Design we're ready to go to construction. We just simply need the additional funding for the project on Grande to install a drainage channel out of concrete and additional funding for Deuce Court to make the in -- or to do complete the installation of the drainage pipe over there. You see all of the numbers in front of you. I can certainly go through them one by one if you would like. MAYOR DICKEY: Total is like 160. The total of both is like 160, right? WELDY: And I'd like to point out just one thing. I'm asking for an owner's allowance in here for a reason. In the past, especially in this community, dealing with mature infrastructure, we have discovered things as we begin to excavate. So the owner's allowance I'm asking for in here is just to cover those unknowns. In the event that everything goes smoothly, we're hoping and planning for the best, we have a little bit of budget authority. Please note that money will not be spent if it is not needed, and it will Page 85 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 86 of 87 MAY 1, 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES simply remain in the capital fund for other uses. You're welcome. SKILLICORN: Madam Mayor. I'd like to make a motion to approve additional funding for D6062-D6063 and the 3rd amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with NFRA. TOTH: Second MAYOR DICKEY: Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: Roll call please. MENDENHALL: Council Member Toth? TOTH: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Ayc. MENDENHALL: Council Member Friedel? FRIEDEL: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Kalivianakis? KALIVIANAKIS: Aye. MENDENHALL: Council Member Skillicom? SKILLICORN: Yes. MENDENHALL. Vice Mayor McMahon? MCMAHON: Aye. MENDENHALL Mayor Dickey? MAYOR DICKEY: Aye. Thank you. MAYOR DICKEY: The legislature has been out for couple weeks. They won't probably name somebody for both of those vacant slots until the Sth. The county supervisors aren't meeting until then, so not much to report there. Anybody have anything they want to say on that one? Council discussion direction town manager. We heard about the garden, so we need to follow up on that. Was there anything else? I don't think there was, except for, obviously, the rezone and all that future agenda items at this time. Well, we only have three more meetings. SKILLICORN: Actually, I would like to have a -- a agenda item for the community Page 86 of 87 TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 87 of 87 MAY 2. 2023 TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES garden layout in the shed. I'd -- 1 would I -- I think it's appropriate for the Council to discuss it. MAYOR DICKEY: Okay. I'm not sure our role in all that, but I'll -- I'll -- I'll definitely follow up and if we have it, well put it on. Okay. That's it then. We're adjourned. Page 87 of 87 Having no further business, Mayor Ginny Dickey adjourned the Regular Meeting of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on May 2, 2023, at 9:39 p.m. ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS � Gi y Dicke , May(or (ice a4 ij#/v Lin G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 2nd day of May 2023. I further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED this 20'h Day of June 2023. Linda G. Mendenhall, Town Clerk